The latest Music Media Watch newsletter from Steve Myers came out yesterday with an op-ed feature on the-phone which we covered to great extent – for our paid subscribers – back in January. That being said it’s well worth the read (for free) as it even popped-up on the O’Reilly Radar this morning 😎 Meanwhile, there’s a few other “Noteworthy News” tips clipped from his blast after the jump.
According reports on the Japanese web, Nokia’s luxury brand Vertu models will finally hit these shores sometime in late 2008. Already available in some 48 countries around the world, the company appears to have struck a distribution deal in Japan with 3G units – chipsets may well have been cause for the delay – set to sell through a SoftBank Group agency.
SoftBank announced they have received a permit from the Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications to run femtocell trials. The experiment, using 2GHz belt, will be conducted in partnership with ip.access, Motorola, Alcatel Lucent, Ericsson Japan, Samsung, Sonas, Ubiquisys and NEC. Femtocell is a micro cellular phone base station that can be set it up in the home or office and offer mobile handsets voice services via existing fixed-line ADSL connections.
The CIAJ has released their annual Telecommunication Equipment Production and Trade Figures report covering fiscal 2006. The total value of production was pegged at 2.589 billion yen, down 5.7%, slipping back to negative growth for the fiscal year. Growth categories include wireless network equipment posting 212.7 million yen, up 1.2% over the previous year, of which fixed telecommunication devices accounted for 125.6 million yen an increase of 5.6% YoY. Wireline parts posted 19.1 billion yen which reflects a positive growth of 8.5% compared to fiscal 2005.
DoCoMo President Masao Nakamura announced at a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that the company will offer a new family-plan package, from August 22, reducing monthly fees in a bid to retain dominant market share. The new Fami-wari MAX plan will enable each subscriber in a family to receive the discount rate of the longest-subscribing family member, or a maximum of 50% for subscribers who have been with DoCoMo for at least 11 years.
SoftBank Corp.’s President Masayoshi Son announced the companies vision going forward during the 27th regular meeting of shareholders held at Tokyo International Forum last week. Topics included an increased focus on contents, as previously signalled by the introduction of Yahoo! Streaming in May, and continued price war on voice services by adding a new total flat-rate calling package between family members to their already popular White Plan. According to their FYE 2006 results SoftBank added 10,000 new 3G base stations over the last fiscal year and plans to achieve a total 46,000 locations – almost on par with DoCoMo – installed by 1H FY2007.
DoCoMo held it’s annual general shareholders meeting here yesterday at the Okura hotel to provide their FYE 2006 results and introduce the companies roadmap for 2007. According to several media reports the Q&A session touched on topics ranging from flat-rate data cards to making dual-mode GSM chipsets a common standard on future handsets and their desire to explore expansion opportunities into emerging markets overseas.
The Nikkei Advertising Research Institute, Nikkei Media Laboratory, and D2 Communications surveyed usage trends by companies using mobile advertising to reach Japan’s more than 97 million mobile phone subscribers. Between February and March of 2007, survey data for advertising expenditure among influential companies was collected by the Nikkei Advertising Research Group from a target group consisting of 1500 leading companies, with 274 companies responding, producing a response rate of 18.3%.
This May, members of the official Screening Committee for the 6th Annual Mobile Marketing Awards convened award prizes to 19 companies for excellence in advertising and marketing using mobile. There were over 314 entries to the competition, an increase of more than 100 applications over the previous year, demonstrating the rising number and variety of companies using mobile. The Awards Ceremony is scheduled for July 19th, at the ANA Intercontintental in Tokyo.
Seron over at What Japan Thinks translated a recently-published report from infoPLANT looking at access trends of blogs and SNS from both mobile phones and PC’s. Conducted between the 15th and 22nd of May 2007 3,709 people self-selected themselves to complete a public survey offered through the NTT DoCoMo iMode menuing system. 61.9% of the sample was female.
