Mobile phone shipments in Japan in 2004 fell 10.5 percent from the previous year as the market matured and as fewer consumers upgraded their phones amid a dearth of compelling new features, an industry group said on Wednesday. Japanese mobile phone makers shipped about 43.6 million phones in 2004, as NEC Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd, the nation's top phone manufacturers, both lost share to smaller rivals, industry research group Gartner Japan said.
It forecast industrywide mobile phone shipments of 42 million to 45 million in 2005. Mobile phone shipments had risen in 2003 after the introduction of camera phones caused a surge in phone upgrades, but 2004 results fell back in line with the overall declining trend. Nearly 70 percent of Japanese already own mobile phones, making it more difficult to add new customers and forcing manufacturers to rely mainly on sales from consumers who are upgrading their phones.
"Mobile phone design, colour, high-resolution camera features and the ability to download ring tunes played into consumers' purchasing decisions in 2004," said Gartner Japan in a news release. "We expect some consumers to be drawn to phones with embedded music player features in 2005, but the effect will probably be limited."
While NEC maintained the largest market share for the year, Matsushita's Panasonic Mobile Communications grabbed the largest share of the market for the fourth quarter, overtaking its larger rival for the first time since 2000, thanks to the popularity of a third-generation (3G) phone with changeable faceplates for NTT DoCoMo Inc.
Sharp Corp, Sanyo Electric Co Ltd and Sony Ericsson all gained market share in 2004.
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