3G FOMA 901i Launch
The 901i-series of 3G FOMA cell phones is DoCoMo’s latest tactical weapon in Japan’s escalating “lighter and smarter” mobile arms race. The four 901i handsets come packed with sophisticated go-go fun: twin stereo speakers and spatially enhanced sound; fat video and music files (500KB); pre-loaded games from Square Enix, Capcom and others; FeliCa smart-card e-wallet functions (in three models); 2-megapixel cameras; a TV guide for accessing TV program listings as far as eight days in advance (in one model) with genre and keyword searches including customized settings and registration for favorite TV shows plus it doubles as a remote control for TVs, DVD-Ds and VTR machines. Wow!
In the mobile space, Asia is a huge, innovate-or-die marketplace, and MobaHo! — a joint venture of 88 Japanese and Korean companies — is gambling Big Money that Asians will want satellite TV and radio broadcasts beamed from the sky direct to their handheld receivers, cell phones and car-mounted tuners — and maybe even iPods in the future. Today, we go eye-to-eye with Mobile Broadcasting Corp. for a first-on-the-Web videocast featuring facts, analysis and great eye-candy of MobaHo’s latest digi satellite terminals.
For a special bonus Christmas present, today’s video program highlights a small company that really adds sparkle to Japan’s national obsession with custom keitai decoration. WWJ videographer Lawrence Cosh-Ishii spoke with Syouji Koyama this week at his (temporary) LED blazing storefront in the fashionable Shibuya shopping district, right across from Japanese gorgeous-Gal headquarters (aka the 109 Building). Cell-phone accessories may look like kid stuff to overseas viewers but the fun and games of charms, designer hand straps, custom-painted handsets and key pad jewels is a multimillion dollar spin-off industry that’s crossing Japan’s borders into Asia and coming to a country near you.
On 16 November, Dr. Brian Clark, acting president and CEO, Vodafone KK, presided at an Imperial Hotel presser announcing Vodafone Japan’s first-half results for the fiscal year ending 31 March 2005. Despite mobile operating revenue falling 2.5 percent year-on-year (to 736.8 bn yen), Clark put on a brave face and emphasized the new 3G terminal line-up, increased 3G coverage, growth in prepaid, and enhanced roaming. Nonetheless, several of his comments contrast sharply with what WWJ knows to be true about the Japan market.
Tokyo’s best and brightest mobilistas gathered for 
From the Tokyo Game Show, in which long-time Tokyo mobile entrepreneur Neeraj Jhanji, builder of the first (and probably only) IM i-mode client for AOL, provides WWJ subscribers with an exclusisve look at his Until Now Very Quiet Plans (indeed, a working demo) to create a mobile version of the globally überpopular Habbo Hotel community service… er… site… or whatever it is. OK — it’s a networking community for digierati burnt out on traditional RPG shooters. In any event, Habbo’s mobile potential is huge (we think) and Neeraj is likely one of the few who can make it happen.