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Content Providers

KDDI Hits BREW Milestone

QUALCOMM just announced a number of milestones underscoring how KDDI’s wireless data service, powered by BREW, continues to spur the demand for mobile applications in the Japanese market. In January 2007, KDDI subscribers downloaded more than seven million BREW applications to their mobile phones. The cumulative number of BREW application downloads is now more than 160 million since KDDI first launched BREW in February 2003. Gaming has proven to be one of the most active areas of mobile downloads. According to KDDI, its catalog of high-quality mobile games has grown from 2,000 applications in January 2006 to more than 3,000 gaming applications in January 2007.

Mobile Manga on BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek posted a good op-ed, by Kenji Hall, about the Manga for Mobile market niche in Japan. WWJ has been covering this evolution ever since Mobidec back in 2004 [video here] and it’s nice to see the concept is finally starting to get some air-time overseas. Manga is a natural content to port for wireless devices here and obviously this simple concept to render text and images, for whatever print media is popular in any given region, makes sense. Note; we also had a fantastic presentation from Digital Garage at Mobile Monday Tokyo in Feb. 2006.

Napster Japan – The First Six Months

On October 3 of last year, Napster Japan launched the first online music subscription service in Japan with an ‘all-you-can-eat’ model – allowing subscribers to download and play as much music as they like for a flat monthly fee. Accompanied by a massive marketing campaign featuring oversized bar-code poster ads, the Napster Japan launch attracted a great deal of attention and media coverage. When the company announced that over 2 million songs had been ‘shifted’ (downloaded for playing) in the first week after launch, it looked as though Napster might well be on track to replace iTunes as Japan’s most popular online music service. So how have the first six months gone for Japan’s first and (so far) only online subscription music service?

DoubleClick Japan Buys Mobile ASP

DoubleClick Japan recently announced they have aquired a domestic mobile CMS integration service provider, Mo-on, without releasing specific terms of the deal. Nextway Co. Ltd designed this ASP service, which provides a web browser-based system complete with various admin. tools, so small to medium sized companies could easily build and maintain new mobile website offerings. According to their press release, the division posted ¥526mln in sales FYE 2006 with ¥18mln profit and noted that the business transfer date is scheduled for October 1st, 2007.

Amp'd Mobile Launches in Japan

As announced last November Amp’d Mobile rolled-out in Japan this month via a new portal service designed exclusively for KDDI subscribers. Amp’d Mobile-Japan debuted with its first “Amp’d Original Presentation” called Boston Gyro: The Big League Report provides real-time baseball reports covering Japanese players in the US from sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe. All Amp’d Japan content is delivered in Japanese or in English with Japanese subtitles.

Namco and KDDI Partner for Mobile Games

Namco Networks has announced an exclusive partnership with KDDI to represent the carriers large catalog of mobile games from Japanese publishers and developers in North American. Running on Qualcomms BREW technology, KDDI has a mobile games catalog which includes a wide range of puzzle, action and strategy games. Financial details of the venture were not included with the statement.