Japan Market
Japan Market

Japan Market

The Mobile Phone Number Portability Fairy Cometh

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan’s equivalent of The Financial Times or The Wall Street Journal, reported on Sunday September 7 that Japan will introduce number portability to keitai from 2005. If you’re not familiar with this system, it allows you tokeep your cell phone number when you switch between carriers and thus removes one of the significant barriers to jumping ship and signing up with a rival provider. Now call me a cynic if you like, but doesn’t it seem a little too convenient that this system is being introduced just as it is becoming difficult to sign up new subscribers?

Subscriptions to KDDI au Cellular Service Exceeds 15 Million

KDDI is pleased to announce that the au cellular service provided by KDDI and Okinawa Cellular Telephone exceeded 15 million subscribers as of Friday, August 15. In April 1999, the former IDO Corporation and former DDI Cellular group completed the deployment of a nationwide cdmaOne network, and started providing a seamless nationwide cellular service to customers.

Irish Mobile Tech Rocks Shibuya

Irish Mobile Tech Rocks ShibuyaIn Shibuya – the heart of Japan’s wireless revolution – the mobile Internet is high-tech, uber sophisticated, and cutting-edge. It’s also… Irish. Normally, we wouldn’t make much fuss over three Ireland-based outsiders trying to break into the mobile market here, but one of them – e-settlement software developer Network365 – recently inked a break-through deal with the local heavyweight, NTT DoCoMo; the other two (Parthus Ceva and Polar Lake) also appear to have some real prospects. Our program provides an interesting, behind-the-scenes look at how out-of-town players are making a dent in Japan’s mobile market. Full Program Run-time 19:27

Info Plant: Surveys 20,046 i-mode Users

Online market researcher Info Plant conducted a survey of 20,046 i-mode users (male 34.6%, female 65.4%) on use of the Internet between July 28 and August 4. Of the respondents, 80.2% use a PC to access the Internet. Of the company owners, people in management positions, and students, more than 90% access the Internet from a PC.

KDDI Grabbing High ARPU Users from Rivals

Shares of KDDI Corp., Japan’s second- largest mobile-phone operator, rose 2.4 percent after the company said users are spending more on services such as high-speed access to the Internet and video clip services. KDDI yesterday said users spent an average of 36 percent more each month in the April to June period as they sent text messages, surfed the Internet and viewed video clips.

J-Phone Q1 ARPU Down 4%

Vodafone Group Plc, the world’s largest mobile-phone company, said customers at its mobile-phone unit in Japan spent an average of 4.3 percent less in the first quarter on their monthly phone bills. Customers of Vodafone’s J-Phone Co. spent an average of 6,980 yen in the three months ended June 30, down from 7,290 yen a month in the same period a year earlier.

Japan mobile handset sales up 33.7%

Sales of mobile phone handsets in Japan totaled 11.9 million units from January to March, up 33.7% from a year earlier for the second consecutive quarterly rise, Gartner Japan Ltd. said Wednesday. Handset sales rose due to a slight increase in new mobile phone subscriptions and brisk demand to replace existing handsets with high-end, camera-equipped models.