History
Kyocera Communications, Inc. was originally formed in February 2000 when Kyocera acquired QUALCOMM's San Diego, California-based terrestrial handset division. Upon the purchase of QUALCOMM's business unit, Kyocera formed Kyocera Wireless Corp. (KWC) headquartered in San Diego. KWC was a wholly owned subsidiary of Kyocera International, Inc. the North American holding company for Kyocera Corp.
In 2003, Kyocera Wireless India (KWI), based in Bangalore, was established as a fully owned subsidiary of KWC, expanding KWC's reach into India's CDMA markets. However, in September 2009, KWC sold KWI to Mindtree Ltd. of Bangalore, India.
In 2008, Kyocera Corp. acquired the mobile phone division of Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. for $375 Million, making them the world's sixth-largest cell phone company. On April 1, 2008, they took the North American assets of Sanyo and created Kyocera Sanyo Telecom, Inc. (KSTI). They also announced that they were entering the GSM handset market, with a focus on the Latin America market. Kyocera continued selling Sanyo-branded phones through out 2010.
On April 1, 2009, Kyocera announced the integration of KWC and KSTI, creating a new, consolidated division called Kyocera Communications, Inc. (KCI), with the headquarters remaining in their San Diego U.S. headquarters. KCI remains one of North America's larger handset manufacturers, providing products to multiple wireless carriers including Sprint, Cricket, Virgin Mobile USA, Boost Mobile, MetroPCS and others.
In October 2011, Sprint began offering Kyocera's Dura Series, an exclusive line of rugged phones manufactured by Kyocera Communications using Sprint's new CDMA-based Push to talk service Sprint Direct Connect.
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