SoftBank
SoftBank

SoftBank

Japan Telcos Announce Fiscal 2007 Results

NTT DoCoMo’s 2007 fiscal year ended on March 31st and the company has posted their earnings release (.pdf) Here. Operating revenues were off 1.6% YoY while operating income of 808.3 billion jpy, or approx. $8B usd, was up 4.5% with the net income growing by 7.4% to 491 billion jpy. Operating revenues, operating income, income before taxes and net income for fiscal 2008 were estimated to increase 1.2%, 2.7%, 4.3% and 2.4% respectively. See the details from KDDI and SoftBank Mobile – as available – after the jump.

Sharp Bluetooth Watch from Citizen

SoftBank Mobile is promoting this iVIRT-M watch, made by Citizen, as an added bonus feature to accompy their 920SH handset by Sharp. According to the details provided it “connects via Bluetooth, so incoming calls, mail, and S! Quick News will always be right at hand”.. we’re not sure if the pun was intended. In addition to functioning as a remote camera shutter, it features a 64-color LCD and can even display mail pictographs. It’s not clear whether the Citizen unit can also function with Sharps 920YK device, recently introduced with a bundled E*Trade stock market application.

Disney Mobile Japan Hits the Street

Backed by their telecom operator partner SoftBank Mobile, and with Hillary Duff as the campaign face, SoftBank Mobile held splashy launch parties in locations around Tokyo this week-end. Drawing attention to the companies branded offerings, with over 3 million content subscribers established in Japan over their last seven years operating here, the new MVNO is bullish about it’s domestic market potential. They have indicated a target segment focus, young women, and have a strong industry partners in SoftBank Mobile, including Yahoo!, to run a viable service offering.

SoftBank Mobile White Plan Exceeds 11M

SoftBank Mobile announced that the number of applications for thier popular White Plan has exceeded 11 million on February 8, 2008. The achievement comes approximately a month and a half after surpassing the 10 million mark on December 22, 2007. As a discount service for White Plan customers, SBM introduced Double White and White Plan Family Discount 24 which have also been well received by customers.

SoftBank Mobile Unveils Spring Handsets

SoftBank Mobile introduced their latest handset line-up for Spring 2008 at a press conference here in Tokyo on Monday afternoon – video in English – with 15 new models announced. With something for everyone on offer they have followed in DoCoMo’s lead of adopting a wide range of GSM roaming enabled units, 7 in all, along with new designs targeted at everyone from children to seniors including all the standard bells and whistles. Several items worth noting include the – better late than never – introduction of Nokia’s N95 into the Japan market and a collaboration with Tiffany for an exclusive designers model. More details after the jump.

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.

SoftBank Mobile Introduces Yahoo Kids Filter

Based on an increasing concern for clients under 18 with mobile data plans who currently may access adult related content SoftBank Mobile has announced the upcoming implimentation of their “Yahoo Kids” content filter option. According to the announcement; “Web use limitation” is a function to limit the access to specific URL’s based on net star Ltd.’s list classification standard. The category that becomes an object is as follows: Unlawfulness, adult, meeting, gambling, grotesqueness, and occult. Apparently, there are certain official contents that will become inaccessible when the filter is in place.

Year-end Results for Japan Mobile Subscribers

JiJi Press is reporting that Japan mobile market leader DoCoMo slipped to third place in annual mobile phone subscriber growth, for the first time, in 2007 based on TCA data released Thursday. Industry-wide subscribers grew 5.9 pct year-on-year with DoCoMo still holding a commanding lead in market share of 52.9 pct, followed by KDDI with 29.4 pct and Softbank with 17.5 pct.

SoftBank Mobile Continues Winning Streak

The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) is reporting that Softbank Mobile won the monthly net-subscriber addition war again for the month of November, marking the the seven consecutive victory for the former Vodafone operator! The company gained a total growth of 191,600 subscribers, or nearly double the combined results of KDDI, which added a net 65,400 subscribers, and DoCoMo with 48,200 net additions. DoCoMo is still, by far, the market leader with 53 million customers, followed by KDDI with almost 30 million and Softbank Mobile now at 17.4 million.