Internet giant Yahoo Japan today said it has cancelled plans to buy domestic telecom company eAccess from its parent SoftBank Corp in a deal valued at about $3.2 billion.

In March, Yahoo’s Japanese unit — whose top shareholder is SoftBank — announced the deal which it said was aimed at growing the firm’s Internet services business through smartphones and tablets.

But on Monday, Yahoo Japan said it has called off the merger after concluding it was more effective to operate the two firms independently.

The deal had been scheduled to be completed in early June, when eAccess is set to merge with telecom company Willcom Inc, also a member of the SoftBank group. That deal is still slated to go ahead.

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