NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan’s largest mobile carrier, has delayed an upgrade to its 3G (third-generation) network, the company said on Tuesday. The company will test its HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) network this year but will not roll out a commercial service based on the technology before April, DoCoMo president Masao Nakamura said at the company’s financial news conference in Tokyo.
ACCESS announced it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with France Telecom for the joint development of a complete wireless Internet solution based on ACCESS’ products and services. This R&D partnership will enable both companies to collaboratively design and deploy innovative, rich media mobile Internet technologies for France Telecom mobile customers. The R&D department of France Télécom and ACCESS are committed to leveraging resources and sharing expertise to develop products based on the NetFront browser framework. The technologies that will be supported within the browser framework include SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), streaming video, SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language), and other rich media and animation technologies.
The April subscriber numbers are public and the news is mixed, at best, for Big V. Vodafone KK suffered a loss of 180,800 2G subscribers but only gained 141,300 3G users, for a net loss of 39,500 subs. This has got to be disappointing given that the March’s loss had fallen to a mere 7,400 and company management were likely hoping April would see a turnaround with the net change moving into the black.
Vodafone K.K. and bitWallet, Inc. announced today they would partner to provide Edy electronic money services to Vodafone K.K. Mobile FeliCa-compatible handsets, which are scheduled for an initial target date of October 2005. The main items of the agreement include bitWallet providing Edy electronic money clearing services to Vodafone K.K. Mobile FeliCa-compatible handsets, Edy e-money services to start when the handsets launch, and bitWallet will offer Edy e-money applications as Vodafone-compatible V-applis (these would be downloadable Java apps).
NTT DoCoMo released their financial results for the year ending 31 March earlier today, and the numbers are stellar. Despite operating revenues achieving “only” 4,844.6 bn yen, down a noticable 4% year on year, net income came in at 747.6 bn yen, up a strong 15% over last fiscal year. But the company foresees tough times ahead, predicting net income for the current fiscal year (ending 31 March 2006) to fall to 497 bn yen, a plunge of 33.5%.
Giant beetles are big business and big fun in Japan. Toy maker Tomy is capitalizing on the current Japanese craze for all things beetle by introducing a mobile game and information site for their line of spring-wound Kabuto Borg GU toy battle ‘bots (Kabuto is short for Kabuto Mushi, horned beetle) that battle Sumo style until one is knocked over. Two collectible Kabuto Borg cards — a beetle card and power up card — are included with each of the newest series of Kabuto Borg toys (819 yen/$7.80) and custom part sets. Cards are stamped with a QR code that links to a mobile website compatible with all the carriers. The site has an information center for battle Borg news; a list of Borg ‘bots and their custom parts; and a Kabuto Borg GU battle game. The game is an “java-appli” so once it’s downloaded users can play without worrying about connection time and fees. QR codes on different cards allow access to a variety of playable battle beetles and power-ups on the mobile game site. More cards equals more beetles, fun and Kabuto Borgs sold.
Tomy is just one of many mobile game makers that use QR codes to draw users into mobile game sites. At the last Tokyo Game Show DoCoMo partnered with game makers like Square, Taito and Atlus, to create a stack of collectible Game Cards stamped with QR codes linked to DoCoMo game sites. Collectors received one card for every game they tried on the cell phones at the giant DoCoMo booth.
