Reports have emerged that Taiwanese company Foxconn is planning its own line of smartphones and it is going to sell it in one of Apple’s hottest market, Japan. If you don’t know, this isn’t Foxconn’s first foray outside contract manufacturing, as the company has a entry-level/mid-range phone line known as InFocus which it manufactures and sells mainly in the Asian market.
Foxconn which employs over one million persons in its numerous plants, is probably better known as the company that manufactures the Apple iPhones along side a host of contract manufacturing it does. But the company is making a bold move in trying to introduce entry-level and mid-range smartphones in Japan with a heavier market push. The report carried by DigiTimes didn’t mention any detail regarding the description or features of the smartphones but disclosed that the release will be done through Foxconn’s sudsidiary Sharp and would commence in the first quarter of 2017.
Foxconn acquired Sharp around March this year for 389 billion yen ($3.5 billion) and it is believed the company will likely sell the smartphone using the Sharp brand which is quite popular in Japan. The move could offset Sharp’s Aquos line of devices which covers the high-end market in Japan with a space left open for entry-level and mid-range consumer devices.
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Foxconn’s other subsidiary FIH Mobile purchased Microsoft’s feature phone business earlier this year for $350 million and looks set to release its first Android phone under the Nokia brand name.
