Earlier this month, we brought you word that NEC has decided to quit the highly competitive market for good, although they will continue to have their interests represented in the tablet world. It seems that fellow Japanese company, Panasonic, too, has decided to take a bow out of the smartphone market – and this bit of information is said to have come from telling a Japanese operator that they will no longer roll out handsets for them.
What you see above is a prototype of the smartphone that Panasonic did pin some hopes on to perform a reversal of its fortunes in the smartphone market, but alas, it failed to materialized. NTT Docomo was informed by Panasonic that the latter will no longer supply them with smartphones from this winter onwards, and considering how NTT Docomo happens to be the country’s largest mobile operator, in addition to being the only channel that one is able to obtain Panasonic smartphones, this does sound as though it is a death knell for Panasonic. Goodbye Panasonic, we hardly knew ye – at least from the smartphone perspective.
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