Fujitsu wants to sell its smartphone business

Fujitsu is preparing to sell off its mobile phone operations as the company faces increasing competition from its larger rivals in the mobile phone space.

Last February, the Japanese manufacturer decided to spin off both its mobile phone and PC businesses into separate companies in an effort to differentiate its offerings.

Fujitsu's mobile division has already attracted a number of investment funds as potential buyers including Japan's Polaris Capital Group and Britain's CVC Capital Partners Ltd. The Chinese PC manufacturer Lenovo has also shown an interest in acquiring the company.

The first round of bidding could start as early as September and offers for Fujitsu's mobile phone division are expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Though the company intends to sell off its mobile phone business and no longer manufacture smartphones, Fujitsu is trying to keep a minority stake in the business to keep its mobile phone brand around and prevent a possible re-branding.

There will likely be more details as we get closer to the actual bidding later this year.

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