Disney Japan Prepares for Launch

Walt Disney Japan held a press conference in Tokyo to introduce their new “Disney Mobile” service which is slated for public launch on March 1st. Although the company will run the business as an MVNO, it emphasized that the service will be distributed in collaboration with SoftBank Mobile with the same “White Plan” price package offerings. There’s a nice Flash video on the home page Here.

The company unveiled their first handset, not the i-Phone (yet), dubbed DM001SH produced by Sharp. The 3G unit, available in silver, gold and pink of course, touts a QVGA screen with 2M camera and other standard goodies such a FeliCa chip for NFC payments and 1Seg digital tv tuner. It has an embossed the Mickey Mouse icon on the outside and comes with a stylish D - Disney Web - button on the keypad. Disney’s 23 official mobile sites can be accessed for free of charge and subscribers will have the ability to enter SoftBank Mobiles’ Yahoo! Keitai deck as well.

The DisneyMobile PC site has more details which includes a so-called Style contest, underway in certain Tokyo locations now, calling for 500 ambassadors to submit their picture to compete for fame and fortune. No doubt the deco-mail and e-moji charaters will be popular and we should think this will also help focus their Wonder Days social networking site as well.

Tags: 3G, digital-tv, felica, Sharp, SoftBank

Posted: 23 January 2008 | Filed: Carriers, Content Providers | Feedback | Print |