An advisory group to Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka will recommend in a final report due out today that the holding company for the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp group should be dissolved around fiscal 2010 and the entire NTT group disbanded, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported without citing sources. According to the article it is far from clear whether the report will become official government policy.
Warner Music has bought a minority stake in a Japanese firm that produces radio programming delivered over mobile phones. The international arm of New York-based Warner Music announced that it is making a capital investment in FrontMedia and supplying it music in exchange for the chance to expand the firm’s mobile broadcasting and video services on the country’s three major mobile carriers. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
As in many countries with an experienced online population, and borne out by recent data from Video Research Ltd., internet usage in Japan is higher than usage of all other types of media besides television. Mobile ad revenue is also keeping pace with online advertising in general, although it has dipped down somewhat from the boom year of 2004.
QUALCOMM has announced the winners of the BREW 2006 Developer Awards, a global awards program that recognizes and promotes the best BREW applications created by wireless publishers and developers. The BREW 2006 Developer Awards — sponsored for the second year in a row by Motorola — recognizes wireless publishers and developers who are creating best-in-class BREW applications and services that are propelling wireless data to the next level. Japanese entries were awarded top honor in 3 of the 9 catagories.
eMobile, a subsidiary of eAccess Ltd., announced today it has successfully completed another round of equity financing with an additional 27.3 billion yen new capital. Following this transaction, the total paid-in capital (capital shares and capital reserve) of eMobile will reach 143.2 billion yen (capital shares: 71.75 billion yen), and eAccess’ ownership in eMobile will be 46.2%. Together with the recent announcement of the project finance transaction of 220 billion yen, eMobile has secured a combined equity and debt capital of over 360 billion yen. The total capital raised should fully satisfy the funding requirement of eMobile’s business plan, according to a company statement released today.
A pair of press releases just came through from Vodafone K.K. with news that WDIG will be rolling out comics and games on Vodafone live! starting June 1, 2006. Disney Mobile Comics will be Disney’s first-ever digital comic content for mobile phones, and will consist of three types of mobile comics for customers to enjoy. Also announced, Disney’s first Bluetooth multiplayer 3D racing game. The Cars 3D V-appli will feature characters from Disney/Pixar’s latest movie Cars, which is scheduled for release in Japan on July 1. Cars 3D is said to be the first game based on a Disney/Pixar movie to appear ahead of film release.
