Pack your Aloha shirts and sunglasses. We’re off to Honolulu (virtually), for the annual Pacific Telecommunications Council conference running 16-19 January. PTC promotes the development, understanding and beneficial use of telecom and information technology throughout the entire Pacific Hemisphere. Sessions and exhibitors include VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver, a WiMax SuperSession and new satellite businesses.
Softbank Corp. has offered to acquire the three Tu-Ka mobile operators from KDDI Corp. for more than 200 bn yen. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said on Saturday that the three are Tu-Ka Cellular Tokyo Inc., Tu-Ka Cellular Tokai Inc. and Tu-Ka Phone Kansai Inc.
Ed’s Note: The Tu-Kas have a total of 3.5 million customers and an established PDC 2G network; this offer might prove to be a more effective mobile-market entry plan for Softbank than going through the courts for 3G spectrum. Watch to see how KDDI reacts.
Some Japanese PSP owners have stumbled upon what they’re referring to as a ‘dummy updater’ on an official Sony website that might give some indication to the future direction of the portable gaming platform [Windows Media video]. Among other things, streaming TV services using Sony’s LocationFree technology might be in the works, as well as less traditional additions like word processing and spreadsheet software. Would Sony’s gaming machine turn out to make a good, all-purpose mobile computing device?
Samsung, announced that its net income for last year exceeded 10.7 trillion won (US$10.3 billion), making it the first company in South Korea to achieve the landmark figure. Last year, Samsung said it sold 86.53 million handsets worldwide, up 55 percent from a year ago. For all of 2004, Samsung’s net income jumped 81 percent to a record 10.7 trillion won. Full-year sales rose 32.2 percent to 57.6 trillion won, the company said.
NEC Corporation announced that NEC Telecommunications (China) opened its first exclusive mobile phone retail store in Beijing on January 12th. Ben Nakamura, NEC’s Senior Vice President and member of the board commented at the opening ceremony: “China has the world’s largest consumer population and we are sure that NEC Telecom China will continue to drive success in this largest telecommunications market.” In addition to this Beijing store, NEC Telecom China has also opened another exclusive store in Guangzhou selling NEC mobile phones exclusively. The company is planning to open 10 more exclusive stores by the end of 2005.
The market for electronic settlements via portable handsets such as mobile phones is likely to start growing in Japan in 2005, say brokerage houses. Nomura Research Institute Inc (NRI), a unit of Japan’s largest brokerage house Nomura Securities, said in a report that it estimates the market of mobile platforms—infrastructures that support electronic settlements and electronic certification through mobile phones—will double to 52.2 bn yen in 2005 from 29.8 bn in 2004, and will expand by eight times to 240.1 bn yen in 2009.
The December 2004 subscriber stats for Japan’s cellcos came out yesterday and the year-end numbers made two points quite clear: KDDI/au beat DoCoMo for the most net adds in 2004 and and Vodafone KK is still struggling. Looking a little deeper, we note that Big D’s mass-subscriber migration to 3G is starting to kick in with almost 1 million customers coming ‘up to speed’ in December alone; meanwhile Vodafone’s live! wireless Internet service actually saw a net decrease in users last month (by 700) while the two competitors added some 200,000 users to their i-mode and EZweb services.
NTT DoCoMo has announced the company will establish offices in Shanghai and Singapore in January 2005. The company said it aims to “enhance its information-gathering capabilities, as well as raise its profile and strengthen relationships with government officials and corporate managers, in these two important markets.” The carrier also stated that, “Yoshimune Ishii will head the Shanghai office and Haruki Yamashita will head the Singapore office, both of which will have about four employees.”
On January 13 at the 3G Mobile World Forum 2005, NeoMtel Corporation CEO Paul Kim will present the streamed session A : 3G content, services, applications, focusing on killer mobile graphic applications and Korean case studies. NeoMtel, the professional company in part of mobile multimedia solution, will be demonstrating the latest mobile multimedia technology, VIS 2.0 in the own booth (No# 22) where attendees can see how the latest mobile vector graphic technologies can be applied to eye-catching mobile services.
MTC, the world’s premier mobile phone operator, is taking steps to boost its global 3G presence and is participating in the forthcoming 3G Mobile World Forum to be held in Japan this week. The telecommunications giant confirmed that it had signed up to become one of the platinum corporate sponsors of the prestigious event, which is being run for the fourth time from January 12 to 14 2005 in Tokyo. The Forum is expected to attract the world’s leading 3G operators, with the commercial application of the technology at a crucial stage and the industry now faced with a choice of options as to how it moves forward.
