Fujitsu, Toshiba agree to merge phone businesses
updated 08:20 am EDT, Thu June 17, 2010
Fujitsu Toshiba union aims for top phones in Japan
Fujitsu and Toshiba today reached a tentative deal to unite their phone businesses. The memorandum of understanding between the two will see Toshiba hand off its phone business to a new, still unnamed company and Fujitsu buy a majority of shares in the new project. The new company and the efforts would begin October 1.
By combining their efforts, the two hope to be strong enough to become the top phone seller in Japan. Fujitsu by itself is already second place through its close relationship with NTT DoCoMo, but Toshiba has just a small fraction of the market and has often struggled as its Windows Mobile-based smartphones have been largely neglected in favor of the iPhone.
A final, formalized deal should be ready by the end of July.
The two companies have grown closer over the past year as Fujitsu gave Toshiba its hard drive business and 7,000 workers as a result.
