The world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, Nokia is planning to stop making phones for the Japanese market.

The Finnish phone maker announced that production would stop for the Japanese NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile, however it will continue manufacturing its luxury Vertu brand.

Due to the economic crisis, Nokia decided to stop targeting Japan-specific products.

Nokia has a 40% global market share but 85% of Japanese already own a cell phone, often having such 3G features as TV broadcasting and electronic payments.

Nokia’s competitor, Apple’s iPhone 3G did fairly well, selling about 200,000 phones in the first two months it was introduced in Japan, but is only expected to reach half of its forecasted target of I million units.