Japanese IT giant Fujitsu is planning to sell off its mobile phone operations after struggling to compete with global rivals in recent years, according to a Nikkei report. Tokyo-based Fujitsu spun off its mobile phone operations into a separate company in February 2016 and is now looking for potential buyers, with first-round bidding potentially starting as soon as September. Interested parties include investment funds Polaris Capital Group and CVC Capital Partners plus China’s Lenovo and Huawei as well as Taiwan’s Foxconn, said the report, adding that the unit will likely be sold for "tens of billions of yen" (hundreds of millions of dollars).
Although a sale would see Fujitsu ceasing the development and manufacture of mobile phones, the company still wants to retain a minority stake in the business and keep its mobile phone brand alive, said the business daily.
Fujitsu recently reported a return to a net profit of JPY 2.1 billion in its fiscal first quarter to June, reversing a loss of 14.1 billion a year ago thanks to a profit on selling its ISP business. However, the group's smartphone sales in the year ending March 2018 are expected to reach just over 3 million units compared to a peak of around 8 million units in fiscal 2011.
