NEC, a little known smartphone manufacturer, announced today that it is bowing out of the smartphone competition. Last Wednesday, the Japanese gadget manufacturer said that it will pull the plug on its smartphone business.

Isamaru Kawashima, the company's chief financial officer, confirmed the death of their smartphone venture. He said that they were too late to compete with already established names such as Samsung and Apple. "We were late to enter the smartphone market, and we were unable to develop attractive products. That's what it comes down to," he said.

In an effort to make profit out of the penniless venture, NEC tried to sell their smartphone sector to Chinese firm Lenovo. No deals transpired between the two.

The company said, however, that it will not halt the production of other mobile products such as tablets and feature phones.

NEC is the largest phone manufacturer in Japan. Unlike South Korean counterpart Samsung, the Japanese firm did not gain any significant share of the global smartphone market. Previously, NEC held 27% of the Japanese mobile market share. During the era of smartphones, NEC lost hold of the market share and never gained any traction outside of Japan.