Hitachi Ltd, which makes mobile phones operating on a standard used by about 90 million people, said it's hoping to boost handset shipments 23 percent this year by introducing newer models to the Japanese market.
The supplier of phones to KDDI Corp until now has been releasing one handset model at a time to replace previous versions. Hitachi will introduce more models in the second half to give consumers a greater selection, expanding to at least two choices in a bid to raise annual shipments to 1.54 million units, said spokeswoman Setsuko Minamikawa in an interview.
Hitachi makes phones that use US-based Qualcomm Inc's code division multiple access technology and is hoping to sell phones in markets outside Japan for the first time as early as next fiscal year. The company has an agreement with China's Hisense Electric Co to license its technology to develop and manufacture CDMA-based cellphones.
"Hitachi has taken a unique strategy" by focusing on CDMA models, said Nahoko Mitsuyama, an analyst at the Dataquest unit of Gartner Group Japan KK. "But I'm a bit skeptical that it can increase shipments by 23 percent when the prevailing mood is that the global mobile-phone market won't grow."
Gartner Inc, the parent of the Japanese unit, expects worldwide mobile-phone shipments to rise as much as 21 percent to 500 million units this year, slowing from 46 percent last year.
Hitachi, which doesn't rank among the 10 biggest mobile phone makers, has focused on feature-laden models for KDDI, Japan's second-largest mobile-phone company. The company introduced Japan's first handset capable of Internet access in 1999. KDDI's first color-screen model was also made by Hitachi.
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