Yesterday, Impress’ Internet Watch carried a brief report casting doubt on the launch of iTunes in Japan anytime soon. The report quoted an Apple Japan PR spokesperson to the effect that Monday’s Nikkei story — that Apple would launch its iTunes Music Store service in August — was untrue.
Vodafone K.K. just announced that it has enlisted two Japanese celebrities, Junichi Okada and Misaki Ito, to promote the companies services in Japan. Junichi Okada and Misaki Ito will feature in new TV advertisements, to go on air from the end of June, that are part of the current “Vodafone, beyond borders” ad campaign. Advertisements in newspapers, magazines and other media will begin from mid-June.
Apple Computer Inc. plans to begin its iTunes Music Store online music downloading service in Japan in early August, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun learned Monday. Apple’s service is expected to offer the largest collection among Japanese music downloading sites, with 500,000 to 1 million domestic and foreign songs. Mora, currently the biggest Japanese music downloading site, offers around 200,000 songs.
Vodafone KK , Japan’s third-largest mobile operator, will boost its capital investment by 50 percent to 260 billion yen ($2.43 billion) this business year to accelerate installation of base stations for 3G services, the Nihon Keizai business daily said on Tuesday.
Costly Japanese domestic phone prices are looking to take a tumble with low-priced hybrid fixed-line/IP telephony services. The newest team-up pairs Japan’s Fusion Communications with Skype Technologies. Fusion’s patent-pending gateway technology takes incoming number-based calls and works with Skype’s database to route them to Skype IP telephony subscribers using the 050- prefix, similar to NTT Communications’ Click-2-Connect IP phone service, also using the 050 designation. Skype works with Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and PDAs using Pocket PC. Users typically connect through their PC. Is Skype, the no-cost free Net telephony provider, finally going to turn a profit?
It’s official! The Mobile Monday (MoMo) event on 27 June happens at KDDI’s super-cool Designing Studio in Harajuku – an incredible venue matched only by the stellar line-up of presenters: Warner Music Japan, Be4 and GMAP. For more information and to register early, access the MoMo site at: http://www.mobilemonday.jp.
