Panasonic is looking to enter the Australian Smartphone market with a sleek new Android 4.0 model that comes with a 4.3″ OLED screen according to executives in Japan.Toshinori Hoshi, head of the company’s mobile communications unit, said the Japanese company is looking to expand their smartphone presence into several markets including Europe, Asia Pacific and the USA. “Smartphone market shares are changing dramatically and if we launch into this fast-changing market, we believe we have a chance of a hit.”
 |
The company announced that it will launch the smartphone which has a 960×540 OLED screen, is waterproof and dustproof in Europe, March 2012, with other markets to follow shortly afterwards.
Panasonic executives said that they were initially aiming for a very small chunk of the market, which IDC predicts will grow to 472 million units in 2011, an increase of 55 percent. By 2015, IDC sees the growth at 982 million units.
Panasonic who has significant smartphone market share along with Sanyo and Sharp in Japan is aiming to sell 16 million units in the year to March 2012, with 5 million of those sold abroad.
“We are well aware of our powerful competitors,” said Toshinori Hoshi “We believe that we have a good chance because of the quality of our phones”.
Panasonic Australia have not confirmed that they will launch a Smartphone in 2012, however CEO Steve Rust has told SmartHouse that he is looking for new categories and products for 2012.
The market for the new smartphone is said to be people over 30.
