Year: <span>2003</span>
Year: 2003

Year: 2003

Japanese Mobile Phones Flooding In

Boasting camera phones, Japanese mobile phones are rapidly making inroads into the domestic market and secured a two digit market share alerting domestic companies. There are concerns that Korean companies set up strong bulwark as Nokia and Motorola, the no. 1 and no. 2 mobile phone makers in the world, pulled out of the domestic market or secured a paltry 3 ~ 4% outmaneuvered by home-grown major companies such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Pantech & Curitel.

China Mobile ARPU Down 16%

China Mobile (H.K.) Ltd., the world’s biggest mobile phone company by users, said its customers spent 16 percent less in the first half and the trend will persist as price competition intensifies with China Unicom Ltd. and other rivals. Net income fell in the second quarter from the previous three months for the first time since China Mobile went public in 1997, as discount services from Unicom and two fixed-line carriers drove down rates.

Dedicated Engine for Advanced Cellular Phones

ROHM CO., LTD recently developed the BU1594GS, a multimedia image processor LSI. This product is a one-chip LSI designed for cellular phone models that are becoming increasingly more functional with advanced features including a camera function. This one-chip LSI, which is ideal for the double-folding models of cellular phones, makes it possible to process major signals in the LCD (liquid crystal display) panel (i.e., the upper panel) of the cellular phone.

RealNetworks Airs Wireless Service

RealNetworks on Monday unveiled RealOne for SprintPCS, its first streaming media service to wireless phones, in the company’s latest move to boost its subscription revenue. The move marks the first time a branded, audio and slide-show service with major content brands has been launched on a big U.S. wireless carrier, RealNetworks said. For RealNetworks, the product marks the most significant push by the company yet to move its streaming media services from PCs onto portable devices such as phones.

Healthcare Goes Mobile in Japan

Healthcare Goes Mobile in JapanWhile there’s gobs of money being made with mail, ring tones, screen savers, mobile coupons, Hello Kitty downloads, and other wireless entertainment services, at least one startup is trying to bring a little mobile convenience to a hitherto largely unexploited area: the burgeoning healthcare market. If you’ve got a chronic disease (think diabetes) that requires hour-to-hour management for issues such as dietary intake, calorie counting, or vital sign monitoring and input, Tokyo-based Mobile Healthcare Inc. thinks that using your keitai is an obvious solution. But the challenges include not only technology and patient education, but also convincing Japan’s hidebound, ultraconservative health system that mobicare makes sense. Full Program Run-time 13:18

The Sky's Possibly the Limit for Mobile Broadcasting Corp.

Japan is six months away from an exciting new multimedia mobile experience courtesyof satellite broadcasting. If this sounds like a curtain raising, rewritten press release circa 1996 previewing the impending launch of the then PerfecTV! digital satellitebroadcasting service, well there could be a parallel or two about the storywe predict will unfold with Mobile Broadcasting Corporation’s attempts,starting next spring, to beam.