Vodafone in talks to sell Japanese fixed line unit

According to reports US investment fund Ripplewood and others are in talks to buy Vodafone’s Japanese fixed line telecoms business from Vodafone’s Japanese unit Japan Telecom holdings.

The business is believed to be worth around 300 billion yen (€2.3bn).

Analysts said the deal represented a good opportunity for Vodafone to quit Japan's fixed-line market, which has suffered by user migration to mobile phones and the growing use of cut-rate internet protocol phones, in order to concentrate on mobile phones. Vodafone apparently means to keep just only Japanese telecom unit, mobile phone company J-Phone.