Casio Hitachi to make inroads into US market

Credit: PhoneScoop.com

First news about Casio’s intentions to enter the US market appeared in November last year. It turns out that it was true. According to Phonescoop.com, the FCC approved the G’zOne handset model, with Verizon Wireless brand mentioned in the FCC documentation. The G’zOne is a ruggedized, water-resistant handset, first shipped to KDDI in May 2005. After more than warm reception of the G’zOne by Japanese users, the company brought it to Korea in December last year and enjoyed high-level sales. Riding on success of their G'zOne, Casio Hitachi worked with Verizon to optimize the handset for the use on Verizon’s high-speed 3G EV-DO network. It can take a couple of months before the handset hits Verizon store shelves.

Casio and Hitachi joined their forces in 2004 and they are relatively small handset vendors, being outside of top-five domestic handset manufacturers. Merging was their only option to sustain and it looks like they are doing fine by expanding their presence beyond Japan.