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To: Cooters who wrote (89470)	12/8/2000 8:41:45 AM
From: Cooters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

Matsushita to Ship Cell Phones to US in 2001 to Build Share --From AOL.-- Cooters Tokyo, Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Matsushita Communication Industrial Co., Japan's No. 1 cell phone maker, said it will begin shipping handsets from a Philippine plant to North America early next year to build global market share. Matsushita, which halted handset production in the U.S. in 1998, will ship phones to North America from the Philippines for about a year. It may set up a manufacturing base in the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico or South America, President Takashi Kawada said yesterday in Osaka. Matsushita, selling under the Panasonic brand, aims to be the world's No. 3 handset maker with a 15 percent market share by 2005. The company may increase production capacity of 2 million handsets annually in China and boost output in the Philippines to expand sales outside Japan, currently its main source of revenue. ``The biggest key is whether we can succeed in the overseas market,'' Kawada said. The company ranked fifth last year with a 5.5 percent share on sales of 15.6 million units, according to market research company Dataquest Inc., a unit of Gartner Group Inc. Worldwide handset shipments will reach 580 million units in 2001, according to market research company IC Insights. Handset shipments by mobile phone makers worldwide next year will be more than 500 million units, increasing to between 700 million and 1 billion in fiscal 2005, Kawada said. Besides China and the Philippines, Matsushita makes mobile phones in the U.K. The company is setting up a handset plant in the Czech Republic with parent Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. slated to start production in October next year. Matsushita Communication stopped making analog cellular phones at a U.S. plant in the state of Georgia in March 1998, under competition from Motorola Inc., the world's No. 2 mobile phone maker. The company is conducting research on digital mobile phones at a U.S. subsidiary, Matsushita Mobile Communication Industrial. Matsushita Communication shares fell as much as 810 yen, or 4.7 percent, to 16,390. Dec/07/2000 21:05 ET