Japan's Toshiba Corp. said Monday it had sold its 33 percent stake in a mobile phone joint venture in China to a local partner, withdrawing from a highly competitive market with hefty growth potential.

Toshiba, Japan's second-largest electronics conglomerate, set up the venture with Nanjing Putian and another firm based in Hong Kong in 2000 to make and sell Toshiba handsets on the mainland.

But a slower-than-expected take-off in high-end mobile phones in the country led to the withdrawal, said a Toshiba spokesman.

Toshiba sold its entire stake to Nanjing Putian earlier this year. He added that this did not mean the company had left the Chinese market for good, and it would consider an appropriate timing for re-entry.

Toshiba now plans to press ahead with its mobile phone business in Europe, where demand for high-speed third-generation (3G) mobile phones is picking up.

Japanese mobile phone makers including NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. had a few years' head start in 3G services based on W-CDMA technology, and hold high hopes that the expansion of the advanced service will help them boost their overseas market share.

China is one of the world's largest mobile handset markets, with 90-100 million units sold last year, or about 17 percent of the world's total, according to various sources.

But the market has also become one of the world's most competitive, as global giants like Motorola and Nokia, which used to dominate, have to vie with a field of homegrown players like Ningbo Bird and TCL Communication.

Source: Shenzhen Daily