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.
In 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
The Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) announced that the number of mobile phones (cellular phones, in-car phones, and PHS products) shipped in Japan in June was 4,878,000 units, a 19.4% increase over the same month the previous year.
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.
Japan’s mobile phone giant NTT DoCoMo has reported a quarterly profit, helped by strong growth at its 3G service and solid per-user revenues, with no big overseas losses this time. DoCoMo earned 196.82 billion yen (US$1.64b) in group net profit in the first quarter to June 30 on sales of 1.25 trillion yen.
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.
