Year: <span>2006</span>
Year: 2006

Year: 2006

DoCoMo Results 3Q2005

DoCoMo have just posted their financial results for the quarter ending 31 December 2005. Operating revenues came in at 3,582.2 bn yen, down 1.7% year-on-year — not bad considering the downward trending ARPU. Operating income was 693.5 bn yen, down 7.7% and income before taxes was 811.2 bn yen, down 32.1%. The lower profits indicate that costs to operate and expand the 3G service continue to remain high. But there are few companies — much less 3G carriers — faced with the ‘problem’ of calculating taxes on 8 billion bucks of profit.

JR East Cranks up Cell-phone Tickets

A new service using mobile phones as smart tickets for trains operated by East Japan Railway Co. began Saturday. The service, named Mobile Suica, combines the service of JR East’s Suica IC card and mobile phone service offered by NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Corp. Once customers pay for train fees or train passes online, they can go through JR wickets in and around Tokyo by just holding their handsets over card readers on the ticket gates, according to the railway. (Mobile Suica is finally in operation! See today’s Viewpoint — Eds.)

Japan Rail Launches Mobile Wallet Phone Service

Japan Rail Launches Mobile Wallet Phone Service by Mobikyo KKOn a sunny Saturday morning here in Tokyo, Japan Rail launched their long-awaited Mobile Suica service, which will allow customers to use their FeliCa-enabled Osaifu ketai (wallet phone) to get into the station simply by swiping their handset past the turnstile reader. The service will be available at almost 900 stations located in the Tokyo, Sendai, Niigata, and Kansai regions. On roll-out day the system supports 12 handset models from DoCoMo and KDDI; none of the three available Vodafone units will be supported at launch. Interesting to note that DoCoMo’s latest F702iD, just announced last week, will be accepted as well. Until now, it has in fact not been possible to use your phone as a train ticket in Japan. Despite all the live demonstrations, trade-show hype and media speculation around FeliCa, the FeliCa-based Suica cards used by JR and the FeliCa-based handsets sold by DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone have been incompatible. As the well-established ‘Suica’ card is also accepted at many shops (including Bic Camera, a major electronics chain) in and around JR stations, this move will undoubtedly push up the volume of mobile payments made in 2006. It should come as no surprise that NTT DoCoMo announced on 26 January that sales of their FeliCa handsets passed the 10 million mark, a notable increased from the stated [.pdf] circulation of 7.7 million units in November 2005.

3-D Avatars for Video Chat

Video-conferencing handsets are taking off, but what about those who shirk the spotlight? Engineers think animated 3-D avatars [.jpg image] may be the answer. “Think of when you’re having a bad hair day,” quips Mike Danielsen of Motorola Labs when asked why he has spent two years developing 3-D animated avatars that can mime a live user’s speech and actions on mobile-phone handsets. Motorola already has phone avatars available in China and Japan, but “they’re highly cartoony,” says Danielson. International competitors include Japan’s Oki Electric Industry, which has developed the FaceCommunicator application for PCs and mobile phones to generate both two- and three-dimensional animated avatars using motion- and voice-tracking as well as key commands.

Japan Cell-phone-accessible ATMs Coming

Cell-phone ATMsWWJ’s Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, our director of digital media and resident video and mobile guru, was in Tokyo this afternoon wrapping up a long day and heading for a few frosty Kirin lagers when he spotted this headline at a news kiosk. Normally, when we latch onto breaking Japan mobile news, we go into hypernewsroom mode, working the phones, Googling the keywords and pinging folks in the know to get as full and in-depth a report as we can — and get the gen onto the site pronto for our loyal WWJ community.

Today, in view of the fact that Tokyo’s Friday Happy Hour is already in progress, we decided to employ a little mobile Internet magic ourselves and get the info to you as directly as we can: Lars grabbed a snap with his trusty Sharp 3G camera keitai and fired it into the WWJ newsroom for more-or-less instant posting.

Oh yes: the news. Looks like Japanese mobilers will be able to access Mitsui Sumitomo ATMs using their phone starting this fall. Looks like the transaction will occur via the FeliCa IC chip. You’ll probably just have to set the phone on a little alcove in the machine and press some keys. More details when we get them. Have a great weekend and happy ‘Beer O’Clock’ wherever you are!

Israeli i-mode in Trouble?

Launching the i-mode platform last September was supposed to be Israeli wireless operator Cellcom’s most important innovation in years, and one of its most significant ever. It was designed to distinguish Cellcom from the other wireless operators and substantially boost the company’s content revenue. Timing is everything in life, and that’s true for i-mode, too. Its fate was sealed the moment that Cellcom’s new owners replaced the company’s management. The new team, headed by CEO Amos Shapira, doesn’t believe that i-mode should be Cellcom’s main content platform. (We’ll take this article with a pinch of wasabi for now — Eds.)