Fujitsu eyes entry into overseas cellphone markets

• Sees China, India as potential target markets
• Aims to boost cellphone sales by 60 pct in two years
• To turn cellphone JV with Toshiba wholly owned unit

TOKYO (Reuters) - Fujitsu Ltd said on Thursday it was aiming to enter overseas mobile phone markets, including possibly China and India, as it seeks growth outside the mature and hotly contested Japanese market.

“We are thinking of entering overseas markets with our smartphones, which we believe can be competitive even outside Japan,” a Fujitsu spokesman said.

“China and India are among possible target markets.”

The Nikkei newspaper cited Fujitsu President Masami Yamamoto in an interview published Thursday as saying the company planned to launch smartphones in India and China — the world’s two largest mobile phone markets — by 2012.

Fujitsu is aiming to boost its handset sales by 60 percent to around 10 million units in the financial year to March 2013, the Nikkei said.

Yamamoto was quoted as saying Fujitsu’s line-up would include models compatible with Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, a next-generation network that promises to be several times faster than existing networks once it is rolled out.

The Fujitsu spokesman said he could not confirm Yamamoto’s comments on sales targets and other details.

Japanese companies were the first to put cameras and Internet browsing on mobile phones but have only managed to secure a combined global market share of about 3 percent, falling behind larger and more efficient global rivals such as Nokia and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Fujitsu integrated its cellphone operations with Toshiba Corp’s in October, becoming the No. 2 player in the Japanese market and preparing itself for a push overseas.

Fujitsu plans to make the joint venture with Toshiba a wholly owned unit during the next business year from April 2011, the Nikkei quoted Yamamoto as saying.