Seoul, Korea-based Samsung plans to sell phones to Vodafone K.K. by summer 2006, entering Japan’s $3.9 bn handset market for the first time, according to company officials involved with the talks. Sophia Kim, a Samsung spokeswoman, and Vodafone’s Tokyo-based spokesman Matthew Nicholson declined to comment. Vodafone Group already buys Samsung phones for markets outside of Japan. Interesting! We were just talking about this the other day! — Eds.
LG Telecom, Korea’s smallest mobile operator, took the wraps off that nation’s first waterproof mobile phone, the canU 502S [.jpg], developed under alliance with Japanese firm Casio Computer. Launched in Japan in May 2005, the G’zOne is a rugged, water-and-shock resistant handset based on the company’s popular G-Shock wristwatch series. The unit has four styles of digital time keeping and a sub-display screen that functions as an electronic compass. The Korean version also comes with an MP3 player and a mega-pixel camera and has a price tag of 550,000 won.
Confirming rumours from earlier this week, NTT DoCoMo and KT Freetel announced today they have agreed on a comprehensive strategic alliance including equity participation. DoCoMo will invest approximately 65.5 bn yen to acquire a 10-percent stake in KTF through a third-party allotment of new shares and purchase of KTF treasury stock by the end of December 2005. This alliance enables both companies to provide better services to customers in their respective markets through the development and promotion of mobile technologies and applications. The nationwide deployment and early stabilization of KTF’s W-CDMA network, with DoCoMo’s technical support, is considered the key to achieving these objectives.
Sharp and Fareastone have launched a version of Vodafone’s 903SH [.jpg] 3G phone in Taiwan. Designed to run on GSM/GPRS and W-CDMA 3G networks, the WX-T91 [.jpg] features the same 3.2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, USB and infrared features, as well as a MiniSD card slot (supporting up to 1GB), an MP3/AAC music player and a bar-code scanner. It also supports Video/TV-Out enabling users to view their pictures and play games on their TV screens. The unit comes in three colors: black, red and white at an estimated retail price of almost $800 — approx. triple the street price in Japan.
Marketing initiatives targeting the mobile consumer must integrate communications and content in order to have the greatest impact, according to a study published this week by researchers at the International University of Japan. Based on the results of 30 in-depth interviews of mobile users in Japan and Indonesia, this research effort developed clearly defined “mental maps” which explain the ebb and flow of consumer perceptions of the mobile Internet. In fact, results show very few culturally specific differences between Japanese and Indonesian respondents, suggesting instead that international differences in usage of advanced mobile data are due to infrastructure differences and the overall structure of a country or region’s mobile value chain.
Even before its official launch, StarHub’s i-mode has more than 50 content providers on board. The list includes MediaCorp TV, MTV, OCBC Bank, Yahoo!, Far East Flora and Zuji Singapore. StarHub hopes to attract 50,000 users within the first year, but i-mode is a unique proposition. The service requires i-mode compatible phones from the likes of Samsung and NEC, so you cannot use other 2G or 3G handsets to access the service. StarHub will reveal full details to the press tomorrow.
Web Update: 18 Nov. DoCoMo PR confirms.
