Wireless News
Wireless News

Wireless News

Vodafone Holdings K.K. Plunges to 100 billion yen Loss

The Vodafone badge is deep red and Vodafone’s Japan arm is heamorraging yen; but, somewhat ironically, the flow isn’t quite as bad as the company thought. Today Vodafone Holdings K.K. announced it had lost 100 billion yen ($887 million!) in the financial year to 31 March 2004 compared to a proft of 79.5 billion yen in 2003 (when the company was still J-Phone). CEO Darryl Green had expected a loss of 114 billion yen, which would have been a super uncool $1 billion bucks at this week’s exchange rates, so it wasn’t quite as big a bloodbath as expected. Vodafone experienced revenue growth of 3.3%, but the company suffered operating, ordinary, and net income deficiencies due to increases in 3G depreciation costs, handset inventory provision, and retention initiatives. The skinny: operating revenues were down 7.9%, 0.3% worse than forecast at 1,665 billion yen against 1,797 billion yen last year. Within this, Vodafone K.K.’s operating revenues were 1,509 billion yen, up 3.3% compared to last year. Operating income plunged 32.9% to 185 billion yen from 275 billion yen last year.

Vodafone K.K. Announces Merger/ Buyout

Ahead of this afternoon’s press release, Vodafone Holdings K.K. and Vodafone K.K. put out a press statement saying they “jointly announce today that their respective boards have agreed to merge the two companies.” According to the statement, Vodafone Holdings K.K. will be the surviving entity and will be renamed Vodafone K.K. after the merger completes [sic]. In a separate announcement, Vodafone Group PLC announced Vodafone International Holdings B.V. (Vodafone International) will launch a 513-billion yen offer for shares in Vodafone Holdings K.K. and Vodafone K.K. Putting good money after bad?

Casio Launches 3-Megapixel Camera Phone

Today, Casio announced the world’s first 3.2-megapixel camera phone, the A5406CA [image] for KDDI. Fully equipped with an automatic focus function, the 2048ױ536 QXGA image size compares in quality to what the company calls “traditional” digital cameras. Mobile snappers can choose from 9 Best Shot modes, including twilight, panoramic, fireworks, and the unlikely named “food” setting. The unit also boasts up to 60 minutes of video recording (clips are saved to the onboard 12-MB data folder). A WWJ English Web news scoop! Press Release in Japanese.

Toshiba Announces Latest Strategic Memory Roadmaps

Toshiba Corporation today announced its latest strategic roadmaps for the memory market, which reflect the company’s continued focus on the rapidly-growing file storage market, the mobile electronics memory market, and high-performance solutions for networking and digital consumer applications. This market segmentation enables Toshiba to respond rapidly to customer requirements and develop advanced memory solutions to meet their needs. Toshiba’s current line-up of memory products serving these three market segments includes NAND Flash, high-density NOR Flash, low-power SRAMs, Pseudo SRAMs (PSRAMs) and advanced Multi-Chip Packages (MCP) which integrate various memory technologies into a single package; and for the networking and extreme performance digital consumer market, Network Fast-Cycle RAMs (Network FCRAMs(TM)) and XDR(TM) DRAM.

DoCoMo Launching New 506i Models

DoCoMo announced today the release of D506i and F506i, two new handsets in the 2G i-mode compatible mova 506i series, that will be marketed beginning May 19, 2004. The D506i [.jpg image] features a voice-activated camera shutter and multifunctional side button to activate the camera for stills/video or the voice recorder, even while the handset is closed. The F506i [.jpg image] includes a 2.04 mega-pixels autofocus CCD camera with a sweep-type fingerprint sensor. You can also get a sneak peek at the new 506i series models in our video coverage from the recent launch event.

Kyocera's Opera Browser Cell Phone

DDI Pocket has introduced this new AH-K3001V handset by Kyocera, the “AirH” terminal has a 2.2 inch QVGA TFT screen that displays 260,000 colors, with a 1.1 mega-pixel camera onboard. All pretty much standard, but it also features an Opera browser which enables POP3 and SMTP e-mail functions, and even has a mini-B type USB terminal that will connect with your PC.