Nokia Corp., battered by the popularity of smartphones, is abandoning the Japanese market after a brief foray with luxury cellphones costing as much as 20 million yen ($250,000). The Finnish handset maker is closing its last store selling high-end Vertu cellphones in Ginza by the end of July. Previously, it had four such stores in Japan, according to Tomoko Morinari of Sunny Side Up, a Tokyo public relations company that has Nokia ( NOK - news - people ) as a client. She declined to say when the decision to leave Japan was made or how many Vertu phones Nokia sold in Japan. Nokia phones have never been very popular in Japan, where the market is dominated by offerings from Japanese electronics makers as well as the iPhone from Apple Inc.
