Global sales of mobile phones in the first quarter of 2007 reached 257.4 million units, a 14 percent increase from the same period last year, according to Gartner. The growth was bolstered by strong demand from key countries in Asia/Pacific, such as China, as well as Japan. Western Europe and North America registered the expected slow down after strong Christmas sales and saw only moderate growth over the same period in 2006.
DoCoMo has just announced that they will form a strategic alliance, through a capital tie-up, with the FamilyMart convenience retail chain. DoCoMo will acquire 2,930,500 common shares owned by FamilyMart — approx. 3% of total issued shares — for about 9 billion yen (usd $74 Million) on June 13, 2007. From July 10, FamilyMart stores will begin accepting m-commerce payments via the DoCoMo iD platform which is currently accepted in only about 140 of nearly 7,000 locations nationwide.
The Economist has caught-on to the growth of mobile novels in Japan noting; “with sales of books in decline, a new market has come as a godsend to Japan’s publishing companies. Sales of mobile-phone novels—books that you download and read, usually in instalments, on the screen of your keitai, or mobile phone—have jumped from nothing five years ago to over ¥10 billion ($82m) a year today and are still growing fast.” BusinessWeek ran a good op-ed on this subject last month as well.
Just when you thought that cellphones could not possibly get any smaller! Check-out the latest lineup of DoCoMo FOMA 903i models, now available online from Strapya World, which are 40% smaller than scale and selling for less than a mere $3 usd each. You can’t choose which model will be sent when ordering a single unit so the company suggests buying the whole collection. I think we will.. 😎
Symbian announced their 20 millionth handset sales milestone in Japan with a rather surprising Jekyl-and-Hyde campaign. First off, they ran a Fortune-500-style blitz – dubbed J20 – complete with CEO webcast and predictable press release – so far, so OK. If that was all they did, we’d certainly join in the chorus to congratulate them on a job well done. When any non-domestic entrant achieves 20 million sales of anything, much less ultra-cool Symbian smartphone installations, WWJ offers our heartfelt congratulations and more power to them.
However, at the same time global HQ launched an akward attempt at what seems to be a viral ad. campaign – called BooHooForYou – with a dedicated website and anime themed video posted on YouTube. Since BHFY provides full English text and subtitles in the animation, the obvious target audience for this little stunt are folks outside Japan. The Japanese audio and English subtitles combined give viewers the distinct impression the site was made in Japan to poke fun at (lagging) European and American mobile markets.
Anyone who understands how Japan’s business and wider civil culture operates will tell you that remaining humble – especially when you otherwise have strong reason to brag loudly in public – is not only expected and practiced, but to do the opposite is highly insulting. Thus Symbian’s BHFY comes across as at least culturally inappropriate and at worst directly insulting.
WWJ editors have lived in Japan for several (many?) years, and we’ve watched closely to see how mobile industry players here build, market and protect their reputations and brand images; we can confirm that video comes across as far too condescending, childish and downright tragic in the way it portrays the Japanese as openly gloating “boo hoo for you.” (Subscribers login for the full rant.)
Shares of Casio Computer Co. fell the most in 32 years after the company missed its profit target and unveiled plans to expand in the crowded mobile-phone market. The stock tumbled by the 400-yen daily limit, or 16 percent, to 2,025 yen in Tokyo, erasing $931 million from its market value. Brokerages including HSBC Holdings Plc downgraded the stock after the company reported annual profit of 25.1 billion yen ($209 million), missing its own estimate by 9 percent.
According to this press release the MLB Washington Nationals became the first major sports team in the United States to use mobile phone ticketing technology in April. Tickets@Phone will allow fans to have their tickets delivered to their phone via text message which includes a unique barcode along with standard ticket information. The barcode may be scanned for entry at the left side of Main Gate at RFK Stadium. Once scanned, each guest will receive a print out of their ticket to be retained throughout the game.
According to this article on IT Media, Hakuhodo DY Group i-Business Center and IT DeSign have developed a new “Movie QR code,” which incorporates moving video into the design. To personalize the appearance of usual static 2D QR codes, IT DeSign recently developed Design QR which inputs images of logos, characters or photos into the code. Movie QR code takes this concept a step further by incorporating moving images into the design, thus optimizing it for use on video screens, where it promises to be even more effective in attracting the attention of potential scanners.
Dentsu, CA Mobile and Cyber Communications announced [.pdf] that the Chinese government has approved their application to begin business operations at the new joint venture they have established to specialize in mobile advertising in China. An announcement ceremony was scheduled to be held in Beijing, on April 17, to mark the launch of Beijing Dianyi Advertising Co., Ltd. The shareholder ratio indicates CA Mobile will retain 66.6% with Dentsu and Cyber Comm. each taking 16.7% of the ¥100 million start-up capital.
BusinessWeek posted a good op-ed, by Kenji Hall, about the Manga for Mobile market niche in Japan. WWJ has been covering this evolution ever since Mobidec back in 2004 [video here] and it’s nice to see the concept is finally starting to get some air-time overseas. Manga is a natural content to port for wireless devices here and obviously this simple concept to render text and images, for whatever print media is popular in any given region, makes sense. Note; we also had a fantastic presentation from Digital Garage at Mobile Monday Tokyo in Feb. 2006.
