Siemens sells mobile division to BenQ

It's official: BenQ is buying Siemens' struggling mobile division. Not sure how much they paid for it, but Siemens, which has desperately—and publicly—been trying to unload this on someone for months, sweetened the deal by buying 50 million euros worth of BenQ shares. So what is BenQ getting? Well besides a company that's losing money like crazy (to the tune of two million dollars a day), they're getting a license to sell handsets under the Siemens brand name for the next five years, as well as access to Siemens' global distribution network and carrier relationships. Overnight BenQ goes from being a minor to a major player in the cellphone biz, but the big question is, what do they do next? Siemens mobile division has been failing for a reason (you can start with their lackluster selection of phones), and it's not all that clear what BenQ can or will do to turn things around. What we do know for sure is that they're planning to keep the business headquartered in Munich, at least according to an internal memo that was sent around earlier today to employees of Siemens mobile division.

[Thanks, jst and Ivan]

[Patrick @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

If BenQ knows whats good for them, they will completely drop the Siemens name. I would never buy another cell phone with the Siemens logo on it.

While they're at it, they should just start from the ground up. Siemens phones are terrible.

[Kai @ Dec 19th 2005 12:16AM]

I completely agree, their handsets are, at best, not very fast, have weird screen dimensions, and buggy java vm implementations. Overall very unpleasant to work with.