NTT Communications and Tmsuk will test an RFID-driven shopping assistant robot at a shoping mall in Fukuoka. The robot reads RFID tags embedded in the floor and get information about its location (it doesn’t use GPS or other location technologies). The pilot test will take place on the 9th of February and lasts till the 15th. The robot can assist in-store shoppers as well as remote shoppers at home.
Motorola, the world’s second-largest mobile-phone maker, could partner with a Japanese manufacturer to launch appealing phones that will help it boost its presence in Japan, its chief executive said Thursday. “We’re trying to figure out how to get into the market quicker with our brand and working potentially with someone else,” Chief Executive Ed Zander said, referring to Japan in an interview with Reuters in Tokyo. “(We’re) talking to the NECs, the Panasonics, the Sanyos, and looking at, ‘Is there technology collaboration to bring products to market?'” Zander said. “We’re exploring some of those things.”
Online market researcher Info Plant has announced the results of a survey of 6,366 men and women on how people use paid mobile sites. The company conducted the survey from December 23 to January 3. When asked about how many paid sites they have used, 24.8% of the respondents answered “one”, followed by “two” (17.8%) and “three” (16.2%). By gender, more women than men have paid for mobile sites (80.0% vs. 74.6%). By age, about 80% of the men in their 20s and the women in their 20s to 40s have paid for a mobile site.
DoCoMo have just posted their financial results for the quarter ending 31 December 2005. Operating revenues came in at 3,582.2 bn yen, down 1.7% year-on-year — not bad considering the downward trending ARPU. Operating income was 693.5 bn yen, down 7.7% and income before taxes was 811.2 bn yen, down 32.1%. The lower profits indicate that costs to operate and expand the 3G service continue to remain high. But there are few companies — much less 3G carriers — faced with the ‘problem’ of calculating taxes on 8 billion bucks of profit.
Video-conferencing handsets are taking off, but what about those who shirk the spotlight? Engineers think animated 3-D avatars [.jpg image] may be the answer. “Think of when you’re having a bad hair day,” quips Mike Danielsen of Motorola Labs when asked why he has spent two years developing 3-D animated avatars that can mime a live user’s speech and actions on mobile-phone handsets. Motorola already has phone avatars available in China and Japan, but “they’re highly cartoony,” says Danielson. International competitors include Japan’s Oki Electric Industry, which has developed the FaceCommunicator application for PCs and mobile phones to generate both two- and three-dimensional animated avatars using motion- and voice-tracking as well as key commands.
WWJ’s Lawrence Cosh-Ishii, our director of digital media and resident video and mobile guru, was in Tokyo this afternoon wrapping up a long day and heading for a few frosty Kirin lagers when he spotted this headline at a news kiosk. Normally, when we latch onto breaking Japan mobile news, we go into hypernewsroom mode, working the phones, Googling the keywords and pinging folks in the know to get as full and in-depth a report as we can — and get the gen onto the site pronto for our loyal WWJ community.
Today, in view of the fact that Tokyo’s Friday Happy Hour is already in progress, we decided to employ a little mobile Internet magic ourselves and get the info to you as directly as we can: Lars grabbed a snap with his trusty Sharp 3G camera keitai and fired it into the WWJ newsroom for more-or-less instant posting.
Oh yes: the news. Looks like Japanese mobilers will be able to access Mitsui Sumitomo ATMs using their phone starting this fall. Looks like the transaction will occur via the FeliCa IC chip. You’ll probably just have to set the phone on a little alcove in the machine and press some keys. More details when we get them. Have a great weekend and happy ‘Beer O’Clock’ wherever you are!
Last week was a rare clean sweep in Japan’s tooth-and-nail handset race as each of the Big Three carriers in turn announced multiple new 3G models at splashy press events. Across the field, we saw an onboard 4-GB hard drive and a digiTV phone from KDDI, the 702i ‘designer’ models from DoCoMo and Japan’s first Samsung phone and new 3G data services from Vodafone. 
It’s no simple coincidence that this week the carriers are announcing their third-quarter financial results: it’s super vital to have a flashy new set of handsets to point to when presenting your report card to the analysts in Tokyo and London. Also, spring is the premiere mobile sales season in Japan and the models announced last week should hit the streets around cheery blossom time.
If Vodafone Japan’s market troubles in the past couple of years can be blamed on handset mix, then the new phones may go a long way to to fixing Big Red’s market position. Today’s WWJ Portable Reportable MP3 audio report features an interview with Vodafone Japan from last week’s press event with in-depth details on their new 3G models, which include phones from Samsung, Toshiba, Sharp and NEC, and comments on competitive positioning in the market.
Extract: Vodafone K.K.’s 3G devices increased by 564,600 in the quarter, bringing the number of 3G subscribers to 2,318,200, whilst market share of 3G net additions remained fairly constant throughout the quarter at just over 10%. Blended ARPU for the quarter was down 3.7% year on year, an improvement from the 5.4% fall recorded in the quarter to September. The continued fall in ARPU reflects the loss of higher value customers in the previous year and competitive pressures on pricing. Blended ARPU for the quarter was down 3.7% year on year, an improvement from the 5.4% fall recorded in the quarter to September. The continued fall in ARPU reflects the loss of higher value customers in the previous year and competitive pressures on pricing. The improved trend is due in part to the positive impact from the new range of flat-rate plans, which are generating additional usage. Service revenue fell 4.5% year on year due to the decline in ARPU. Voice revenues fell 6.2%, with non-voice revenues broadly stable. The improvement versus the previous quarter can be attributed to an improved ability to retain customers, resulting from a better handset line-up and service offering. (WWJ subscribers log in for more details).
KDDI have released their financial results for the third quarter (3Q) of the current fiscal year ending March 2006. The company’s operating revenues from the mobile business came in at 2,486 bn yen, up sharply from the year earlier figure of 2,324 bn yen. Nonetheless, consolidated earnings for KDDI overall (mobile, fixed-line and other business) before interest, taxes and deductions were down year-on-year at 649 bn yen from 664 bn yen.
The mobile wallet foreshadows a possible total change in consumer payment behavior. With various payment modes utilizing technologies such as infrared, SMS, interactive voice response, mobile scan and contact-less chips, the mobile phone is being transformed into a replacement for petty cash, debit and credit cards, with payments charged either through the mobile phone bill or even directly to the bank account. IDC expects the market to begin to take root, beyond the leading adopters of Korea and Japan, at least in the micro-payment segment.
