Vodafone have just released their December net adds: 63,700, showing a strong 3G gain of 236,800 and a to-be-expected 2G loss of 173,100. This indicates the carrier gained at least some new 3G customers from other carriers if we assume all Vodafone 2G customers who upgraded to 3G stayed with the carrier. Vodafone KK subscribers are now, overall, trending up, if still slowly.
KDDI have just posted their December net adds: 348,300, based on an increase of 398,300 in CDMA 1X users and a loss of 50,000 cdmaOne (2G) customers. This compares to DoCoMo’s presumed increase of 1,422,700 based on their public November FOMA count of 18,588,300 and their statement last week that they surpassed 20 million on 29 December. No word yet from Vodafone nor from the TCA website. Link to full details after log-in.
Aeroflex Inc. announced that Masahiro Okabe has been appointed as the sales manager for Japan. According to the press release, Okabe comes to Aeroflex with nearly 17 years experience in the test and measurement products industry. His experience encompasses engineering, business leadership, sales, and channel partner management. He holds an Electric Communication Engineering degree from Tokyo Denki University.
In the 1997 movie Titanic, Thomas Andrews, the ship’s designer, states: “From this moment, no matter what we do, Titanic will founder… It is a mathematical certainty.” In the same light, it’s interesting to note today’s news from NTT DoCoMo, stating the carrier surpassed 20 million 3G FOMA subscribers on 29 December 2005. If we assume the same rate of growth this month, and compare to KDDI’s presumed rate of growth in December and January, we can make a pretty good guess as to when Big D will grab 3G lead. More importantly, what does this mean for the market?
(Excerpt from full article) We can also expect January to be a good month for phone sales — for all carriers — due to a rather significant practice in Japanese culture: o-toshidama. This is the practice of giving gifts of money to children and teens. The money is usually given in little decorative envelopes, and according to 1999 data from the Kumon Children’s Research Institute, an average child received around 40,000 yen (I guess it’s more now). Most significantly: “Most save the money, [but] others spend it on relatively expensive computer games, clothes, and CDs.” And phones, we suspect.
At the end of last year, a group of procurement officials from NTT DoCoMo visited China to inspect Nokia’s mobile phone plant. The visit, ahead of the launch in February of the Finnish group’s handsets bearing the DoCoMo logo, was designed to reassure the Japanese carrier that Nokia’s facilities were up to its demanding standards. DoCoMo cancelled its initial contract and scaled back its procurement from Nokia when the launch was delayed due to the difficulty of installing i-mode, according to one official.
Here’s a fun web video for everyone to enjoy from all of us here at Wireless Watch Japan! We stopped by KDDI’s Designing Studio in Harajuku yesterday afternoon with our long list of groovy gadgets we wanna have for Christmas and to sit on their robot Santa’s knee. As it turns out, maybe we’re getting a bit too big for that — but it was fun anyway! Dressed up for the holidays, this robo Santa-san unit made a splash during the 2005 International Robot Exhibition held recently at Tokyo BigSite. According to Designing Studio’s Manager Natsuko Kimura, the robo Santa was created by KDDI’s partner company I Bee K.K., which develops products based on Bluetooth technology. While we were there, it seemed like a good idea to send best wishes to our faithful WWJ visitors, recorded from under KDDI’s three-story tall Christmas tree.
