Archive for the 'Viewpoint' Category
iPhone in Japan: Past, Present and Future
Plenty of news today considering the recent announcement from Apple, the iPhone 3GS will hit here June 26th, so we thought it would be worthwhile to review where things stand to-date for Steves Amazing Device in Japan. Since both Apple and SoftBank Mobile have always refused to disclose unit sales, even targets for that matter, it has naturally been an ongoing obsession for many - how is the iPhone doing in Japan? There are several angles to approach this on so for starters lets just say that, while there seems to be recent awakening and therefore increased adoption, expectation often leads to disappointment.
As the 1st year anniversary since launch here last July is fast approaching we have assembled our most candid and personal observations, for WWJ Subscribers, after the jump.
Disney to Launch the iPhone in Japan
Only those who have been totally blocked-out from all media sources over the last year would wonder what an iPhone is as the so-called “Jesus Phone” has been in the mainstream headlines since even before it was officially unveiled in January. However, for a combination of reasons, there has only been mild speculation about when - or indeed how - it would become available in the Japanese market. Citing the initial lack of 3G capability, not too mention an ‘unusual’ operator revenue share arrangement, the story so far has centered around deployments in the US and Europe.
We noted here on Wireless Watch last week that, “SoftBank and Disney have come to terms on rolling out the long-awaited Mickey Mouse MVNO in Japan.”, and it would seem - as speculated then - the iPhone could very well play front and center role in their plans. Looking beyond whois on their board of directors, a handset deal tied to revenue share from the traditional operators would be a ‘difficult’ proposition in Japan. With a dozen OEM’s here who have long-established carrier connections, such a move would — shall we say — set a rather disruptive standard going forward. However, an MVNO like Disney should have a little more breathing space to maneuver and most certainly would love to splash with some glitzy hardware bling in order to attract even more attention.
On the content side, Disney has real depth beyond just cute characters.. which are very popular in their own right here. The companies movie catalogue and TV inventory via Buena Vista combined with games, music and Extreme Sports offerings would all display quite nicely on “Steves Amazing Device”.
So much for antidotal pondering. How could we come to terms with making such a bold statement, when even the local very well connected tech media has not - so far as we could find - managed to break this news? WWJ subscribers login for the real juice.
DoCoMo Strikes Back with 905i-Series
Domestic market incumbant NTT DoCoMo came out with all guns blazing during their press conference at the Grand Park Hyatt in Tokyo on November 1st. For the first time ever they combined the launch for both of their upcoming 700 and 900 series models - a record 23 handsets unveiled at once - and the announcement included several new service offerings as well. Marking another notable difference from previous line-up introductions was the absence of Natsuno-san, famed ‘father of i-mode’ and always energetic MC, from the stage.
The companies flag-ship 905i-series included 10 models which will all come fully loaded with high-speed HSDPA, 1Seg digitial-tv, DCMX m-commerce, GPS, 2in1 dual-sim identity and enabled with GSM chipsets to allow global roaming complete with voice-to-text translation capabilities for English, Chinese and Japanese. Further enhancements in handset design include increased multi-media applications in motion sensor gaming, flat-rate music subscriptions and i-motion videos along with updated i-area mapping and cell broadcast emergency announcement services and Flash Lite 3 pre-installed all coming as standard features across the board. See a few examples [in Japanese] Here.
The new 705i-series models include several interesting exceptions to what has been generally considered in the past to be a lower-end offering. For starters the L705iX (aka Shine) will take advantage of the next-gen. network offering a potential down-link speed of 7.2Mbps and both the P705i by Panasonic and the N705i from NEC will ship with full spec. features of the top-tier 905i handsets. While only 3 of the models have GSM roaming, all of the domestic makers offer the 2in1 sim, DCMX payments, GPS appli, Mega Games, i- motion video and biometric security functionality.
The staggered release schedule announced indicates that we will see the 905i-series start shipping later this month with several designs, including the Cyber-Shot and Viera, coming in early 2008. The 705i models on display, which were all mock-ups, will not start rolling-out until January with the above mentioned L705iX expected sometime in February or March. WWJ Subscribers login for more details and our full 30-minute video program.
Impressions from the MoMo Global Summit
The 3rd annual MobileMonday Global Summit was held in Helsinki, Finland, on 10 September with an estimated 1,500 attendees; this year included a bonus side-trip to St. Petersburg, Russia, the following evening. WWJ was there once again, as founders of the MoMo Tokyo chapter, along with representatives from over 20 MoMo cities around the world. In addition to our Trip Report, WWJ’s ed-in-chief Daniel Scuka offers these thoughts about the experience.
MoMo Global Summit panels
The event panels included a nice cross-section of ‘insidery’ mobile folks. One of the best was definitely the Executive Panel, including Gartner’s Lars Persson, KDDI’s Hitomi Murakami, CEO Veli-Matti Mattila, from Finnish No. 2 carrier Elisa, Senior VP Ville Mujunen, from Sulake Dynamoid, and Director Mark Ollila, from Nokia. It was nice to see Murakami-sensei asking questions back to the audience (”Most Japanese think our next-generation mobile business will be based on mobile TV. What do you think?”), to elicit a little interactive feedback, and the Nokia guy was pleasantly down-to-earth (they aren’t always) and humble, mentioning that he sees one of the big challenges in answering, “How do we obtain and access content via mobile?” Maybe we’ll finally see Japan’s track-proven QR code application get more serious consideration in at least some of Nokia’s markets (note this upcoming event by MoMo in Barcelona!).
While I was interviewing KDDI’s Murakami-sensei - video excerpt - I was once again struck by how odd the Japanese find the rest of us out there (here?) in the world - and I’m not just talking food. His comments were a genuine expression of how surprising it is for a Japanese mobile-phone user - of any age - to find that folks elsewhere don’t use their phones for email, don’t use their phones for buying stuff at the convenience store and don’t use their phones for getting on the train. WWJ subscribers login for our full-length video interview: run-time 15:27
It’s as if the Japanese car makers back in the 80’s had gone ahead and developed their kick-ass, world-beating technology and production methods, but the only place you could buy their cars was in Japan itself. That’s how weird it is and that’s how far behind the rest of the mobile world seems to be falling.
Viewpoint: What Leads Mobile in Japan?
The genesis of today’s Viewpoint was back in March, when we spotted this op-ed referring to Japan mobile that had stated: “What’s different about the Japanese mobile market is that innovation is moving toward business models and marketing tactics instead of technical features and functions.” That op-ed piece in turn cited a new research report on eMarketer, “Japan: Marketing to a Mobile Society,” which insisted: “What stands out in the current Japanese experience is the fact that the center of gravity for getting through to Japanese mobile users has shifted in favor of business models and marketing tactics as opposed to new technical features and mobile phone functions.”
We took exception to both these as serious mis-analyses of the cornerstone role that technological innovation and network infrastructure competition have played - and continue to play - in powering Japan’s mobile success story. After contact with the eMarketer editors, we agreed to write separate opinion pieces, which we would both republish side-by-side in our newsletters, as an excellent way to hash out the topic and let you - our collective readers - decide.
Sadly, the marketing guys at eMarketer quashed the idea, as the subject and the detailed discussion would be “too technical a topic for our [eMarketer’s] newsletter.” But we know that WWJ readers are more than smart enough to figure out for themselves what’s really driving the mobile Internet in Japan! So we wished the eMarketer editors best of luck in the future, again gave thanks that WWJ doesn’t have any meddling marketing guys, and herewith present to you our Viewpoint.
(Subscribers login to access the full article by WWJ editor Daniel Scuka)
Image: Holographic projection demo at NTT DoCoMo R&D Labs, November 2006 ©Mobikyo
Failure to execute doesn’t mean i-mode is dead (yet)
After last week’s O2 and Telstra i-mode cancellation news came out, it took hardly any time at all for the obfuscation and mis-analyses to hit the Web.
The news, in case you missed it, confirmed that Australia’s Telstra would, and the UK’s O2 most likely would, end their i-mode services; Telstra will terminate i-mode support at the end of this year, while O2 will stop selling new handsets this month and phase the service out over the next two years.
O2 UK was reported to have 260,000 active users, a dozen i-mode-compatible handsets and some 150 sites; O2 Ireland has not stated their subscriber numbers, but the Times said total O2 subscribers were 546,000, implying that Ireland had 286,000 i-moders. Telstra reportedly has fewer than 60,000 subscribers. WWJ members login for the full skinny.
Symbian Says BooHooForYou
Symbian announced their 20 millionth handset sales milestone in Japan with a rather surprising Jekyl-and-Hyde campaign. First off, they ran a Fortune-500-style blitz - dubbed J20 - complete with CEO webcast and predictable press release - so far, so OK. If that was all they did, we’d certainly join in the chorus to congratulate them on a job well done. When any non-domestic entrant achieves 20 million sales of anything, much less ultra-cool Symbian smartphone installations, WWJ offers our heartfelt congratulations and more power to them.
However, at the same time global HQ launched an akward attempt at what seems to be a viral ad. campaign - called BooHooForYou - with a dedicated website and anime themed video posted on YouTube. Since BHFY provides full English text and subtitles in the animation, the obvious target audience for this little stunt are folks outside Japan. The Japanese audio and English subtitles combined give viewers the distinct impression the site was made in Japan to poke fun at (lagging) European and American mobile markets.
Anyone who understands how Japan’s business and wider civil culture operates will tell you that remaining humble - especially when you otherwise have strong reason to brag loudly in public - is not only expected and practiced, but to do the opposite is highly insulting. Thus Symbian’s BHFY comes across as at least culturally inappropriate and at worst directly insulting.
WWJ editors have lived in Japan for several (many?) years, and we’ve watched closely to see how mobile industry players here build, market and protect their reputations and brand images; we can confirm that video comes across as far too condescending, childish and downright tragic in the way it portrays the Japanese as openly gloating “boo hoo for you.” (Subscribers login for the full rant.)
DoCoMo 2.0 — Message Lost in Translation?
On Monday 23 April NTT DoCoMo unveiled their latest 3G handsets, the 904i-series, at a press conference held here in downtown Tokyo.
WWJ pointed to this webcast of their presentation, which clearly stated from the very beginning the new “DoCoMo 2.0” campaign theme.
We shouldn’t really be surprised that the main message, from Japan’s dominant mobile operator, contained in the announcement somehow managed to get 2.0 attention from the mainstream media. With few exceptions, the entire tech web focused on the motion-sensor for gaming application. Few if any noted how ironic it was that while the company insisted it was going to “focus on offering unique applications and services that will be difficult for the competition to duplicate” they were in fact introducing a functionality which was originally made available in Japan [video here] by Vodafone and Sharp over two years ago.
Perhaps the gritty details — such as the fact that all five new models will (of course) ship pre-installed with the Osaifu-Keitai FeliCa mobile wallet together with related security services — are less appealing to the overseas media than Nokia’s recent announcement that they, too, have the mobile wallet urge?
To be sure, there were a few interesting new offerings in Natsuno-san’s presentation, such as the 2-in-1 dual-identity option and flat-rate access to Napster’s full music library service. However, one of the main observations we take away from this news is that the rest of the world still tends to focus only on the most quirky headlines (wait until the MSM find out about this one). WWJ subscribers login for our thoughts on this latest development.
Wireless Watch - Spring Fresh Site Design
A pleasant April Fool’s surprise for all WWJ regulars here today as we’ve finally moved our tired old website - circa 2003 - into the digital trash can. We have made a few changes, beyond the somewhat tricky migration from Nuke to Wordpress, with this new offering. The ‘tag cloud’ for keywords, ’share this’ option (with easy article bookmarking) and ’send to friends’ function, ‘related entries’ (below all posts), a mobile feed version and an improved archive structure should help you navigate the large amount of content WWJ now makes available. As the saying goes, you don’t realize how much stuff you have.. until you have to move it!
One of the more notable changes is that we have opened the extended section of most ‘quick posts’ to free view; we are also happy to bring a couple of great outside contributors into the fold and will be making a seperate introduction for them soon. Full site access to our original Viewpoint articles and Video Programs will continue to be available only to paid subscribers.
Finally, on behalf of our parent, Mobikyo, we are pleased to join with a new local partner, Infinita Inc., to begin offering Japan Mobile Research Reports. Considering our combined experience and network of contacts, this development is a natural evolution for the content and services already on offer. We expect to make a more formal announcement, including additional partnerships, in short order. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy the new WWJ site style and look forward to your feedback.
Japan: The Future of Mobile Markets
According to an article on eMarketer, “What stands out in the Japanese mobile market is the fact that innovation is shifting toward business models and marketing tactics as opposed to technical features and functions … the explosion of non-official mobile content Web sites is causing the sun to set on the i-mode business model of a dominant mobile carrier selling incremental content and services to its user base,” says John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer senior analyst.
There are several ‘gee-whiz’ statements in this summary, starting with “Marketers are looking to the Japanese mobile market as a model of the converged media future,” which are clearly designed to help sell their research report. However, we really must challenge outright some of the assurances offered. For example, the eMarketer quote above which states that “Innovation is shifting toward business models and marketing tactics as opposed to technical features and functions” is off-base on both counts.
The continued innovations from DoCoMo and the other carriers in network speed, handset design and content & service offerings speak volumes about the Japanese mobile market and the continued utterly fundamental role of the carrier in driving innovation. Granted, the increase in non-official content sites was obvious and predictable, given how easy the continuing carrier-led innovations make getting onto the mobile web for both providers and surfers. And the carriers have known this from Day 1 of i-mode.
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