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AFTER winding down its cellular-phone operation in
the country, Panasonic Manufacturing Philippines Corp. (PMPC) turned
around and announced it will sell a new line of mobile phone in the
local market in the future.
Hiroyuki Iwaki, marketing
director of Panasonic, said the company will release
third-generation (3G) phones, but not this year.
“We’ll going to come up with
3G phones in the future, [but] we don’t know yet the exact
time,” Iwaki told reporters at a media event to celebrate the
company’s 40th year in the Philippines.
The Japan-based Matsushita
Electrical Industrial Co. Ltd. closed its Philippine mobile-phone
unit in 2006 following its decision to “phase out its overseas GSM
[global standard for mobile communications] mobile-terminal business
due to severe global competition.”
PMPC had a 2-percent share of the
domestic mobile-phone market up to the time it stopped operating the
unit in March last year.
PMPC President Reynaldo S. Lico
said with several major brands dominating the GSM market, it would
be “very difficult for Panasonic to stay competitive in the
Asia-Pacific market.”
“It is more appropriate for
Panasonic to focus on the future mobile-phone platform after GSM,”
Lico averred.
 --Chino
S. Leyco
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