TOKYO-A three-hour bus ride from Tokyo will get you to Kakegawa, the leading production area of two popular Japanese items: green tea (ocha) and Panasonic wireless phones. But just like green tea, Panasonic’s wireless phones have not achieved the same level of success in the United States as they enjoy here.
The U.S. play
However, Panasonic hopes to re-enter the U.S. wireless phone market by the end of this year with grand designs for the future.
“In five years, we would like to capture a double-digit market share,” said Osamu Waki, director of Matsushita Communication Industrial Co. Ltd., the division of Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. that makes the company’s wireless devices.
By year-end, he said the company will introduce Panasonic-branded TDMA wireless handsets here, with plans to add CDMA and third-generation terminals as the networks become available. Japan plans to launch wideband CDMA next spring, and Panasonic is ready to support that rollout as well, if and when it makes its way to the states.
TDMA may seem like a curious choice for the Japanese firm, but Waki said the decision essentially was made for the company.
“Our customer wanted to go to that system,” he said, not naming which customer. “Besides, TDMA is similar to our PHS systems.”
Panasonic has grand designs beyond the United States. Its stated goal is “to be one of the major players in the world.”
To do so, it must contend with the dominance of players like Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. and L.M. Ericsson. Aside from the sheer size of their market share, these players have the added advantage of having network infrastructure activities as well.
Panasonic is the first to admit the coming age of wireless Internet will require deeper partnerships between handset manufacturers and phone manufacturers, as well as with content providers and operators. This relationship is very deep in Japan, but is not nearly as apparent on shores outside the island nation.
Panasonic grudgingly admits this is a hurdle it must face, but counters with what it perceives as unique strengths of its own. The company plans to leverage its knowledge of next-generation phone features to carve away some of the niche the big three have today.
Look at the types of services expected to be offered over 3G networks, it says: graphics, video, color and interactive services. These are advanced services the dominant handset players are only beginning to develop, but with which Panasonic has intimate familiarity as Japan’s leading provider of i-mode handsets.
The 3G play
When U.S. carriers roll out 3G networks, Panasonic said it will be waiting with the latest in these advanced phone features, while the others are still figuring out their first-generation models.
“Panasonic’s audio-visual and advanced graphics functions are what we hope to use to give us an advantage when the world moves to 3G,” Waki said.
In addition, the firm already is planning vast integration capabilities for its phone to interact with many other devices. Bluetooth technology is taking off here, being a featured corner of almost any wireless-related booth at CEA TEC, a large Japanese consumer electronics trade show.
Panasonic and other Japanese manufacturers plan to create a network of devices that allow all to share such content as still pictures, video, audio files and navigation. Data received from one source, such as the phone, is expected to be easily transferred to another device for greater ease of use.
“I see the need for Internet access from phones rapidly growing,” said Kunio Nakamure, president of Matsushita Electric. “Internet access is no longer regulated to PCs. We can access the Internet by PC, TV, mobile phone and PDA (personal digital assistants). So various Internet network terminals will be born. I call this the Internet Big Bang.”
