Mobile Users
Mobile Users

Mobile Users

What Happens When Mobile Mail is Cheap

If you read Daniel Scuka’s guest viewpoint late last week, you’ll know the key difference between Japan and Europe – SMS mail pricing. While his opinion is his own, we noted this spectacular example of what can happen when mail (SMS or SMTP) is cheap – like it is in Japan. Ironically, this story comes not from an advanced, Western European market like Germany, France, or the UK, but from the Czech Republic – where SMS messages cost as little as 0.03 euro each and local municipal authorities are exploiting the ubiquity of cellular to bring eGovernment services to the masses.

How Europe Really Differs from Japan

WWJ co-founder Daniel Scuka reports from Germany

Earlier this month, I wrapped up a 7-city seminar tour, “Mobile Kaizen in Japan.” The one-day MKiJ seminars, co-produced with Mobile Economy, were an in-depth look at the success factors behind the wireless Internet in Japan. Here are some of my own findings..

Attendees included mid- and senior-level people from carriers, content providers, consulting firms, and mobile application houses, as well as several academics, some students, and one or two journalists. All in all, it was a fun, eye-opening experience, and – as best I can tell from verbal and mail feedback – was well enjoyed by our audience.

KDDI Takes Half of New Subs in October

Japan’s Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) announced that Japan’s mobile phone users amounted to 83.91 million as of the end of October. KDDI took more than half of the share, 52.6%, for the single month for the first time, thanks to the successful promotion of 3G service. October’s net increases saw KDDI back at the top position with 185,900 units, followed by NTT DoCoMo (146,000 units) and J-Phone (33,200 units).

China Mobile Phone Users Set to Rise

About 500 million Chinese people, or one out of every three Chinese, will own a mobile phone by the end of 2007, a latest industry research report said. As China’s mobile phone penetration grows to one-third from the current 18 percent, the value of the telecommunication-related market will reach 520 billion yuan (US$62.65 billion) in 2007, said CCID Consulting Co Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed information industry-consulting firm, in its report.

Area Information Service to be Tested

DoCoMo announced today that its R-Click Service, a new area-information service incorporating i-mode mobile phones and a “wireless tag” device, will be tested by Mori Building Co. Ltd. at the Roppongi Hills complex in Tokyo. The test will be conducted from November 1, 2003 to February 1, 2004. Individuals participating in the test will each receive a wireless tag transmitter, called a Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tag. Approximately 4,500 RFID tags will be distributed for the test.

KDDI Tops Ten Million 3G Users

KDDI Corporation and Okinawa Cellular Telephone announced that the total cumulative number of users for the 3G mobile phones (CDMA2000 1x) being offered by the two companies has surpassed ten million on September 16. Sales of CDMA2000 1x au mobile phones began on April 1, 2002. The ten million mark was surpassed less than eighteen months after the original release.