According to Chinese-language Commercial Times, O2 Asia Pacific (which isn't operating any mobile networks in Far East but a reseller of O2-branded Windows Mobile devices) is planning to reduce its size or eventually withdraw from the Asia-Pacific market due to lower-than-expected sales. According to the Commercial Times, the company has stopped taking delivery of handsets as well as suspend orders for new models with ODM handset maker Quanta Computer, Gigabyte Communications and Arima Communications to incur minor losses from canceled orders.

In response, O2 Asia Pacific said it is adjusting its product strategy for the second half of this year and that the company has no plans to withdraw from the Asia-Pacific market.

Well, this would be too bad since O2 Asia is quite innovative and has some interesting products in its portfolio. While it shouldn't affect O2 Europe's portfolio (yet) the news above makes some sense since O2 Asia Pacific is a subsidiary of O2 UK which is owned for roughly two years now by Spanish Telefonica. And during the past weeks, Telefonica has started to "clean-up" O2 Germany which resulted in a partly replacement of the top-management (including the CEO). So streamlining further subsidiaries makes sense - even if it would be a bad move and a worse development for the Asian Pacific Windows Mobile market.

Cheers ~ Arne