Japan Market
Japan Market

Japan Market

SoftBank Mobile Winning New Subscriber War

The TCA just announced results for October confirming that SoftBank Mobile has won the most net subscribers for sixth consecutive months. Since the introduction of their so-called White Plan, which includes flat-rate voice calling within their network, the company has continued to grow it’s third place market share. According to the official numbers for October 2006, when SoftBank Mobile re-launched the troubled Vodafone KK operations, they have gained almost 2M new customers.

Sharp Ships 5-Million 1Seg TV Phones

Sharp announced on Friday that it has passed the five-million mark for shipments of 1Seg digital tv phones in Japan. Since releasing its first hanset in May 2006 – originally introduced by Vodafone KK – Sharp has deployed a total of eight models across all three operators. By reaching this milestone in less than 18 months, Sharp becomes the first OEM in the industry to ship five million 1Seg handsets.

Taito Unveils Air Guitar for Mobile Phones

Talk about Mega Games, wish we had seen this at TGS in Sept., Taito has announced it will release a motion sensitive music application for DoCoMo 904i-series handsets (D904i excluded) in December. Their so-called “Intuition Band” game also makes use of the built-in camera sensor and a/v output allowing ‘players’ to create their very own mobile music! It will apparently also do other instruments, such as drum tracks (not sure about vocals?), and the company will be offering a free trial version via the i-mode menu from early November.

Location Based Temp. Work Force

LocationValue is running an interesting LBS play called Otetsudai (helper) Networks, a new service which enables people looking for temp. work to establish a profile listing their skills and download a GPS location reading app. to their mobile phone. Employers who need someone for a few hours can just send the request to Otetsudai Networks and within minutes, they will have a list of people who might be available. The list shows what each person is qualified for, how others have rated their work and exactly how far away they are.

Second Life Japan Mobile in Beta

Second Life Japan’s mobile application is slated for public launch here on December 15th and the company is going into recruiting mode for 100 beta users to take the new service for a test-drive. The mobile version will offer both limited free and full paid monthly subscription accounts, 315jpy per month including 300 Linden dollars, and appears to be initially targeted at DoCoMo handsets from the 3G FOMA 700 and 900 series. Clients are strongly urged to make sure they have a flat-rate data plan!

IPMobile Makes 11th Hour Move

IPMobile announced last week that it has reached an agreement with Hong Kong based Distacom Group. The company is planning to lodge a request with Ministry, ahead of the required November 9 service launch date, to switch from it’s approved TD-CDMA format to the TD-SCDMA system citing improved procurement costs for the latter Chinese standard.