OSAKA, July 20 (Kyodo) — Panasonic Corp. will sell its mobile phone base station business to Finland’s Nokia as it redirects resources to other growing operations, sources close to the matter said Sunday.

The Osaka-based electronics manufacturer is expected to sell the business for several billion yen, closing the deal by the end of March 2015, they said.

Panasonic provides wireless control systems and related equipment to mobile communication carriers such as NTT Docomo Inc. through a subsidiary, Panasonic System Networks Co.

Competition has been intensifying with domestic and overseas providers of base station equipment, including NEC Corp. and Fujitsu Ltd.

The expected deal with Nokia would lead to a further scale down of the mobile communication business for Panasonic, which has withdrawn from production of consumer-use smartphones.