DoCoMo Charts Course for Fiscal 2007

DoCoMo held it’s annual general shareholders meeting here yesterday at the Okura hotel to provide their FYE 2006 results and introduce the companies roadmap for 2007. According to several media reports the Q&A session touched on topics ranging from flat-rate data cards to making dual-mode GSM chipsets a common standard on future handsets and their desire to explore expansion opportunities into emerging markets overseas.

Via Australian IT:

NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile phone operator, will start offering unlimited wireless internet access for computers at a flat rate to prevent customers from defecting, according to chief executive Masao Nakamura. “We have no choice but do it,” Mr Nakamura said. “Data services can no longer be pay-per-use.”

DoCoMo started selling unlimited web access for mobile phone users on March 1 for 5700 yen ($55) a month. Mr Nakamura said unlimited web access for computers would be “slightly more expensive”. DoCoMo would provide the flat-rate service through a card inserted in notebook computers.

According to an interview with the Financial Times, via Yahoo!

“Vietnam, India and China are rapidly growing markets and, if we are going to make an investment, it will be sizeable,” said Mr Nakamura in an interview with the Financial Times. “Our focus is Asia. Overseas revenues will drive our growth in the future.”

“Vietnam is the hottest market in the future but [the government] would only allow a minority stakeholding,” said Mr Nakamura. “I think it would be unrealistic to acquire over 50 per cent in an Asian operator from day one. Even if we started with a small stakeholding, it doesn’t mean we would rule out increasing our stake - we want to take a long-term approach in Asia.”

See this .PDF with a detailed overview of the companies presentation.