Japan Market
Japan Market

Japan Market

Japan Telecommunication Equipment Production and Trade Figures

Japan Telecommunication Equipment Production and Trade FiguresThe Communications and Information Network Association of Japan has just released a report detailing the overall value of domestic production for Q1-05. It quoted totals for the April–June quarter at 620.3 billion yen, a reduction of 2.4 percent over the same quarter last year. The total value of production excluding cellular phones was 222.4 billion yen, a growth of 2.5 percent year on year. While network equipment and parts, such as routers and hubs, recorded healthy figures due to the switch to IP and broadband networks, cellular phones, which make up two-thirds of the market, dragged the total figure down, resulting in a slight reduction overall.

The production figure for cellular phones decreased by 5.4 percent over the same quarter of the previous year to 392.5 billion yen, resulting from fewer new subscribers and a negative rebound from the growth spurt in the January–March 2005 quarter. The July–September quarter is expected to return to positive growth with growing demand for IP network equipment and upgrade sales in conjunction with the expansion of 3G cellular phone services.

Locked into the Mobile Loop

Locked out of your Tokyo apartment? Forget the locksmith; call the phone company. Alpha Corp. has come up with a door locking/unlocking system that works with DoCoMo’s FeliCa IC card-equipped mobile phones. Similar systems have been around for several years, but this all-in-one door handle and locking unit can be installed on any existing entry without any special wiring. Previously mobile-phone activated locks were only available on new hot-wired apartment buildings. An extra subscription service even allows owners to check over their mobile if doors are locked or not (see also: Mobile FeliCa Trial Launch: Video Report from Dec. 2003).

Japanese Cell Phone Sales Set to Surge in 2006

Japanese Cell Phone Sales Set to Surge in 2006

Market research firm Gartner Japan has good news and bad news for cell phone manufacturers and telecos. The company predicts Japanese handsets sales could reach 49 million units in 2006 as mobile number portability finally makes it debut and consumers trade up to faster, smarter handsets on their carrier of choice. That’s good news since sales for 2005 are looking rather flat especially compared to those halcyon days of 2003 when the debut of the camera phone helped drive sales to over 48 million units. Bad news is that Gartner’s research [.pdf in Japanese] indicates sales will fall again sometime in 2007 once consumers have replaced their current handsets.

Of course it doesn’t take costly research to know telecos here have a lot to worry about. With the domestic cell phone market fast reaching saturation point DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone will have to depend not only on handset replacement but rolling out comprehensive mobile consumer, retail, and data-related services — both in-house and through partners — to retain customers and keep income flowing in the right direction.

Jupiter Japan to Become MVNO

Shares of Jupiter Telecommunications Co. rose as much as 2.9 percent after a report that Japan’s biggest cable television provider may begin its own cellular phone service using Vodafone Group Plc’s Japanese network. Jupiter’s stock rose 1.5 percent to 94,900 yen as of 9:58 a.m. in trading on the Jasdaq. The company may sign up with Vodafone K.K., the local unit of Newbury, England-based Vodafone, next year, said Jupiter President Tomoyuki Moriizumi in an interview with the the Yomiuri newspaper. Officials at Tokyo-based Jupiter were not available to comment on the report.

WLAN's Merge into BB Mobile Point

Japan Telecom and Softbank BB have agreed to integrate their public WLAN systems. The merger combines Softbank BB’s “Yahoo! BB Mobile Zone” service in cities and Japan Telecom’s “Mobile Point” service in train stations of the Japan Railway group. The combined service will become know as “BB Mobile Point” according to the companies’ joint press release.

Mobile Monday Tokyo – 1st Birthday Bash

Summer break’s over, and Mobile Monday Tokyo is back to rock your socks! It seems like only yesterday that we announced our launch event! But that was last September — a lifetime in the mobile space — and we’ve since grown from bottle-feed darlings to lovable little monsters getting our fingers into everybody’s (wireless) business! Our 1st Birthday Bash on 5th September will have plenty of room for everyone — including well-wishers from the ACCJ — at the uber-trendy loft-style Warehouse Club in Azabu-Juban. The evening includes presentations from Opera Japan and FreeVerse Partners, with a super buffet by the good folks at Corporate Gourmet. Cya there.. 😎

KDDI to Buy TEPCO's Telecom Unit

Japan’s second-largest telecoms operator KDDI Corp. has agreed to buy Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s (TEPCO) fixed-line telecoms unit PoweredCom, Inc. in a stock-swap deal, the Asahi daily reported on Wednesday. The Nihon Keizai business daily reported on 29 July that TEPCO, Asia’s biggest utility, would transfer its entire 84 percent stake in unlisted PoweredCom in exchange for KDDI shares in a deal that would value PoweredCom at around 100 billion yen ($900 million).

Square Enix to Acquire Taito

In the latest move amid industrywide reorganization, Square Enix Co., the maker of the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy video games, announced Monday it will acquire smaller rival Taito Corp. for 67 billion yen. Kyocera Corp., Taito’s parent with a 36 percent stake, said it has already agreed to Square Enix’s bid. Taito, which operates 270 arcades nationwide, is known as the creator of Space Invaders, the arcade video game that became a phenomenon in the early 1980s. Square Enix was born from a merger of the two major role playing game makers two years ago. The combined sales of Taito and Square Enix stood at 158.42 billion yen for the year ended in March.

FreeVerse Partners and Nihon Enterprise Release BREW Mobile Video SDK

Nihon Enterprise Co., Ltd., a mobile applications and content provider, and FreeVerse Partners, a technology incubation and development company, announce the release of their joint development effort; “MobileMovie Showdo”. Showdo provides BREW application developers a powerful toolkit to integrate video and audio into new and existing BREW applications. Showdo is based on TruVideotm, a high performance video CODEC, and includes a rich API that allows game and application developers flexibility in integrating video and audio into BREW applications. Performance of up to 15fps is noted on common ARM9 based handsets breathing new life and adding a new dimension of excitement to mobile games and video applications.

Japan Mobile Market Myths from Past and Present

Japan Mobile Market Myths from Past and PresentThe recent guest article, Mobile Music Best Practices from Japan and Korea, has resulted in some interesting comments on the web. It seems that the long- wrong-held belief about Japan’s mobile success story is still being attributed to the “There are relatively few people in Japan with a home-based Internet connection, making the mobile Internet more attractive” syndrome. However, it’s clear according to the ITU that Japan’s Internet and PC adoption rates have been much the same as, or even better than, the adoption rates in European countries such as France, Germany and the UK since at least 2001. Another comment we saw regarding the Chaku-uta Full song downloads explained in the article said “it seems to me it may be being marketed (and more importantly used) more as a next-generation ring-tone service than as a true music service”.

This is incorrect. Today in Japan, marketing to encourage customers to upgrade and listen to full-track music on their new mobile devices is everywhere; in print, outdoor and on television commercials, we are seeing massive “i-pod-meets-mobile-phone” promotions. Hence the stereo headphones and J-pop artists making regular appearances to help push the product. Sure, people can use full songs as ring-tones as well (that’s a bonus), but that is not how Chaku-uta Full is be marketed or — more importantly — being used. (And you don’t have to take our word for it. Visit KDDI’s Ad Index site and surf around to watch their current selection of TV commercials.)