Japan Market
Japan Market

Japan Market

Cell-Based Location Services on Target and Japan has Cheapest WLAN on Earth

So far, Japanese carriers haven’t really pushed location services as stand-alone products; they’re sold as “part of” a handset and there are no handsets that are sold only as, or primarily for, navi-service capabilities. Sure, KDDI did do a big marketing push when their first GPS-enabled keitai hit the market in December 2001, but now it’s just one more feature onboard their fleet (in the January catalog, KDDI showed six of 11 handsets as having GPS capability). Also: Looks like Japan’s WLAN market – in addition to being highly fragmented – is one of the cheapest.

NTT DoCoMo to Expand M-stage Visual Net Service

NTT DoCoMo announced today that the company will expand its M-stage Visual Net service to include Personal Handyphone System (PHS) and land line phones that have teleconferencing capabilities, starting March 24, 2003. M-stage Visual Net provides a communications platform that enables numerous people to participate simultaneously in mobile videoconferencing.

Japan's Generation of Computer Refuseniks

Most teens and young adults in Japan rarely use computers to surf the World Wide Web. Instead they use cell phones to access a scaled-down wireless Web. The result: A growing computer literacy problem among Japan’s youth. Yasushi Takashita smiled sheepishly when his slender girlfriend Rika, clinging to the train stanchion next to him, suggested he use the Internet to search for some college-related information he needs. “I don’t know how to use a PC,” he admitted as the orange Chuo Line train car bumped out of Yoyogi, an area in central Tokyo with a high concentration of private prep schools.

Too Much IT May End Your Love Affair

When Rei Nagashima, a 20-year-old university student, first saw the new-fangled mobile phone, she thought it was pretty cool, not to mention harmless. Equipped with a tiny camera, the sleek device could take and send not only photos, but video clips as well. It was given to Nagashima (not her real name) by her wealthy boyfriend after she taunted him, half jokingly, to buy her a new mobile phone.

DoCoMo Boosting M-Zone?

I received a nice plastic bag with a brochure and a pack of tissues (standard Tokyo street-level marketing fare) from a young lady in Ginza last week. The packet flogs DoCoMo’s “M-Zone” WLAN service, and the brochure prominently displayed a map showing where you can access the (recently expanded) system around Tokyo station (13 locales, including Tokyo International Forum). Time for Big D to play catch up to Yahoo! Mobile?

Contracts Near 80 mil. in Feb.

The total number of mobile phone and personal handy-phone system (PHS) subscription contracts has neared 80 million, with the number standing at 79.85 million at the end of February, up 0.5% from the previous month, a telecommunications association said Friday. In terms of the three main mobile phone companies, the NTT DoCoMo Inc. group had 43.23 million mobile phone contracts, followed by the KDDI Corp. group at 13.72 million and the J-Phone Co. group at 13.62 million, it said.