Disqus
At the CTIA, Kyocera Corporation announced the formation of Kyocera Communications Inc. (KCI), as a “next step in the global integration of Kyocera’s wireless device business.” The new company will be headquartered in San Diego, and will comprise the combined sales, marketing and service functions from Kyocera Wireless Corp. (KWC) and Kyocera Sanyo Telecom Inc. (KSTI), to better manage those functions for all Kyocera- and Sanyo-branded wireless devices in the Americas.
From the official release:
KCI’s formation is the latest step in the global integration of Kyocera’s communication equipment product segment, a segment that began in 1979 in Japan. Looking to expand globally, Kyocera purchased the wireless handset business of Qualcomm Inc. in 2000 and created KWC from its assets. Then, in April 2008, Kyocera acquired the wireless handset business of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. (Sanyo) and created KSTI from Sanyo’s North American team, which was headquartered in Chatsworth, Calif. On January 29, Kyocera announced that the global coordination of Kyocera’s communication equipment product segment will take place at the company’s product-line headquarters in Yokohama, Japan. Within the new structure, KCI will be Kyocera’s wireless sales, marketing, customer engineering and service operation for the Americas, representing virtually all products from the communication equipment product segment. Meanwhile, the remaining portion of KWC will focus on engineering, working closely with its counterparts in Yokohama.
Eiichi Toriyama, who joined Kyocera in 1972 and has spent 37 years in sales and marketing, has been appointed as president of KCI. Commenting on his appointment and on the company’s restructuring move, Toriyama said: “There is great strength in the combined global forces of Kyocera and Sanyo’s mobile device groups and KCI represents the new face of this unified business for the Americas. Not only are we streamlining duplicated functions within the organization, but also we are creating synergies with unified, complementary product and technology roadmaps that will ultimately benefit our customers.”
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
