Mobile Users
Mobile Users

Mobile Users

Sony Ericsson's Mobile Music Buzz

Sony Ericsson today announced a new promotional space for developing artists called M-Buzz. The initiative will use Sony Ericsson’s established PlayNow service, which has been enhanced to include full-track music and allows consumers to download music to Sony Ericsson phones in just four clicks. M-Buzz will go live on 2 October and downloadable content will be made available, in a phased approach, in 20 markets which already offer secure full-track over-the-air music download services.

Mobile email rocks!

I’ve had some interesting discussions in the past ten days with folks in Japan, Europe and elsewhere on the topic of mobile email. The topic also came up at last Friday’s W2 Forum seminar on Japan and Korea (“Trends & Insights from Japan & Korea“), held in London and attended by a lively and interesting group of folks from publishers, content providers, media, analysts, ad agencies, tech vendors and others.

DoCoMo Searching for Search Partner

NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to ally with an online search engine this year to keep pace with expected handset functions by rivals KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp. “Mobile phones are becoming much closer to personal computers,” said Chief Executive Masao Nakamura during an interview in Tokyo. “We definitely need a search engine.” He declined to name the search engine the company may ally with. Original Source

It goes without saying that since KDDI just announced their tie-up with Google and with SoftBank owning Yahoo! there are few alt. choices left. The betting has already started on whether it will be Ask or Excite.. will be interesting.

Vodafone K.K. Financial Results for Fiscal 2005

Vodafone K.K. has just announced its results for fiscal 2005 (the year ended at 31 March 2006). Positive net customer additions of 169,200 were recorded in the period due to an expanded lineup of handsets well-suited to the Japanese market, improved network coverage, and the launch of attractive price plans. Net customer additions in the period represented an increase of 79,900 compared to 89,300 in the previous fiscal year and achievement of the turnaround plan announced at the beginning of the period. Consolidated operating revenues declined slightly to 1,467.6 billion yen and consolidated ordinary income declined by 51.5% to 74.4 billion yen. Consolidated net profit was 49.5 billion due to an extraordinary profit of 20.0 billion yen.

ACCESS to Acquire IP Infusion Inc.

ACCESS CO., a global provider of mobile content delivery and internet access technologies, today announced its intent to acquire IP Infusion Inc., a leading provider of intelligent network software for enhanced IP services, with a total consideration of approximately USD 50 million (approximately JPY 5.8 billion). IP Infusion will become a wholly owned subsidiary of ACCESS after the completion of the transaction, which is scheduled in early March and subject to the approval from IP Infusion’s shareholders.