Matsushita Electric Industrial and NEC said the two companies and Texas Instruments are considering a mobile-phone tie-up to strengthen their cost competitiveness in an extremely crowded handset marketplace. The three companies reportedly are planning on establishing a joint venture in Japan this summer to develop core mobile-phone parts such as chips. Matsushita's phone unit, Panasonic, and NEC ranked eighth and ninth during the fourth quarter 2005, according to Gartner, and they are struggling globally and in their home market of Japan. Nokia and Sanyo formed a CDMA handset joint venture earlier this year, and we'll probably see more tie ups as vendors try to stay afloat amid the cutthroat competition.
To read more about the tie-up plans between Matsushita, NEC and TI:
- take a look at this article from Dow Jones