Asia Pacific Market
Asia Pacific Market

Asia Pacific Market

DoCoMo to Buy China-Made Handsets

NTT DoCoMo may buy cheaper handsets made in China by NEC Corp., its No. 2 supplier, to cut costs as revenue falls. The company is also offering handsets from overseas vendors such as Nokia Oyj and LG Electronics Inc. in the coming year, Chief Financial Officer Yoshiaki Ugaki said in an interview conducted on Nov. 15. Foreign-made phones can be as much as 10,000 yen ($84) cheaper than domestic handsets used on the company’s high-speed network, he said. DoCoMo expects costs to sell new handsets to rise in the fiscal second half as more customers typically upgrade or buy new phones at the end of the business and academic year in March, Ugaki said.

Asia Technology and Telecom Summit

Top executives and analysts from around the world are visiting the Reuters Tokyo bureau, 13-16 September, for the Asia Technology and Telecoms Summit. Reuters’ clients and visitors will be able to read a series of exclusive articles about leaders of industry. They also have posted some interesting video interviews with DoCoMo, Vodafone and new mobile entry eAccess.

Japan and China Sign Mobile MOU

The governments of China and Japan plan long-term co-operation for the development and standardization of future mobile communications technologies. Ministries of the Chinese and Japanese governments have signed a memorandum of understanding that will see the two countries collaborate on the development and standardization of advanced mobile communications. The Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) and Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) will co-operate on what they call fourth-generation, or “beyond the third generation” (B3G) technologies.

Samsung to Adopt Aplix Java

Samsung has announced it will adopt “JBlend” for its mobile phone handsets. JBlend is the Java execution environment developed by Aplix Corp. for use in embedded devices. Samsung plans to deploy JBlend in several of its models to be developed and launched in the future. “It is to be the first time for Samsung to deploy JBlend in the mobile phone,” according to Aplix.

Japan, China to Cooperate on 4G

The Japanese and Chinese governments have finalized plans to cooperate in developing technology for fourth-generation cellphones, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Wednesday. The report said Japanese and Chinese government representatives will meet in Tokyo on Friday and are expected to sign an agreement to cooperate in research and development of 4G cellphones, which are expected to come into practical use around 2010.

KDDI to Buy Handsets From Pantech

KDDI Corp., Japan’s second-largest mobile-phone operator, will procure handsets with high-speed Internet access capabilities from South Korea’s Pantech Co. to reduce costs. Pantech, South Korea’s third-largest mobile-phone maker, will offer 3G handsets to KDDI by the end of the year, KDDI spokesman Haruhiko Maede said, confirming a report today in the Nihon Keizai newspaper.