Kyocera Says Goodbye to the Consumer Smartphone Market

Earlier this week, we talked about the challenges facing smartphone manufacturers in an inflating economy. We highlighted how rising costs and changing technology trends can make it difficult for companies to remain profitable.

One such challenge has led to Oppo discontinuing its own chipset, the MariSilicon X. However, it seems that Oppo is not the only company facing difficulties in the smartphone market.

In a recent report from the Japanese publication Nikkei, Kyocera has announced that it will finally be saying goodbye to the smartphone manufacturing business. They say that this decision comes after nearly 35 years of manufacturing smartphones in this industry.

The company said that high costs and an inability to make a profit are the reasons for its exit from the consumer market.

During a financial results briefing for the end of the fiscal year, Kyocera President Hideo Tanimoto stated that the spread of high-speed communication standard ‘5G’ will raise the cost of terminals and the company could not make a profit.

While the company does not disclose sales figures for its mobile phone business, it is believed that half of its total sales were to consumers and the other half to corporations.

Kyocera has been manufacturing smartphones for nearly 35 years, but the company won’t be giving up on making smartphones entirely. Instead, the company will focus on corporate smartphones, where it can easily showcase its strengths in “maintenance and operation support” and try to rebuild.

Kyocera’s decision to exit the consumer smartphone market comes at a time when other smartphone manufacturers are reviving their phone lines. Today, HTC announced the revival of its U series phones, while Kyocera is moving out of the consumer market.

With the start of the “5G era” and the rising costs of producing smartphones, it remains to be seen how other smartphone manufacturers will adapt to the changing landscape of the industry. While this is all we know for now, rest assured that we will keep you updated as new information becomes available.