Panasonic phones are made by Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd, located in Yokohama-city, Japan. Before 2003, the company name was Matsushita Communication Industrial Co., Ltdhttp://panasonic.net/corporate/segments/pmc/index.html

At one time, Panasonic sold quite a few GSM mobile phones, mostly in Europe, but at the end of 2005, they quit manufacturing GSM phones in order to concentrate on 3G phones in the Japanese market.http://forums.wirelessadvisor.com/wireless-news/12827-panasonic-shutters-gsm-phone-business-focuses.html Panasonic GSM phones can still be purchased, but have not been manufactured since December of 2005. http://www.planetomni.com/FAQ_gsm.shtml#3 http://www.gsmarena.com/panasonic-phones-6.phpIn April of 2008, Panasonic became the first Japanese Mobile phone producer to sell 100 Million phones, almost all of them in Japan.http://news.softpedia.com/news/100-Million-Panasonic-Handsets-Sold-83118.shtml

Panasonic Mobile Communications holds the second largest market share (15.1%) in Japan, trailing only Sharp Corporation (26.2%). In June of 2010, however, Fujitsu and Toshiba began talk of forming a mobile phone merger which would create a new company holding 18.7% of the market.http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100611-702495.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines

The Japanese mobile phone market is robust and advanced, but unlike other markets. As a result, Japanese mobile phones lack competitiveness in the global marketplace. All of the Japanese mobile phone manufacturers combined have less than a 3% share of the world market. In an attempt to break into the international market, Panasonic has been making plans since March of 2009 to make an Android based smartphone for sale outside of Japan.http://www.intomobile.com/2010/06/14/fujitsu-toshiba-to-merger-their-mobile-units/

In April of 2010, NTT DoCoMo (Japan’s biggest mobile phone carrier) announced a pending group effort to save all of the mobile phone companies time and costs by development of a new joint mobile operating system. Joining DoCoMo will be Sharp, Panasonic, Fujitsu, and NEC. Phones with the new OS are not expected until 4th quarter 2011 or first quarter 2012.http://www.nttdocomo.com/pr/2010/001473.html/