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Toshiba Pushing NAND Memory

Toshiba has announced a new series of embedded NAND Flash memories for mobile phones offering both a configurable single-level cell (SLC) memory area and a multi-level cell (MLC) memory area, allowing applications and data to be stored on the same chip. The five memories in the mobileLBA-NAND series range in capacity from 2- to 32-gigabits(1) (Gb). The 2Gb, 4Gb and 8Gb versions can be allocated as SLC up to their full capacity, while the 16Gb and 32Gb versions can support up to 8Gb of SLC, offering manufacturers greater flexibility in allocating memory in their products. Samples of mobileLBA-NAND packaged in MCPs will be available from August 2007.

KDDI Announces 15 New Handsets

Mark May 22 on your calendar under Tokyo mobile madness. In the space of a few hours we had an avalanche of new handset models – 27 in all – announced by both KDDI au and (see our previous post) SoftBank Mobile. The Okura hotel was swarming at 10am as the wraps came off au’s Summer 2007 lineup and of course they have their usual dedicated, and slick, Flash site online Here. It will take us a little while to plow through the complete details of each model, available in Japanese, meanwhile we have compiled a quick overview for you after the jump.

Sharp Reports Mobile Sales Up 29 Percent

Profit at Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp. jumped 15 percent in the latest fiscal year on strong sales of flat-panel televisions and mobile phones according to results reported this week. Net income surged to 101.7 billion yen (US$861.9 million) in the year through March, while sales climbed 12 percent to 3.13 trillion yen (US$26.5 billion), Sharp said in a news release.

IPMobile Announces Major Changes

IPMobile announced that its major shareholder, Multimedia Research Institute Corp., has reached an agreement with Mori Trust Co., Ltd. to transfer its stocks, therefore Mori Trust will become IPMobile’s major shareholder. According to the statement, IPMobile will review its capital structure and continue to raise investments required to launch commercial services. IPMobile is currently in talks with Mori Trust Co., Ltd. and will make an announcement about the timing of the launch and the details of its service once an agreement is reached.

Japan Mobile Subscriber Statistics

The Telecommunication Carriers Assoc. (TCA) released their official updated Japan mobile subscriber details (see graphic on our left nav.) for the month ending March 2007. While we had mentioned several times recently that March is the traditional handset replacement month, even WWJ was impressed to see the volume of activity achieved. KDDI’s AU brand continued to show the way with a net increase of 530,000 while DoCoMo, with their latest models line-up becoming more widely available, added a respectable 298,000 new contracts. SoftBank Mobile reported a total gain of 127,000 compared to only 63,000 year-on-year for March 2006 when the company was still running as Vodafone. By far the most interesting numbers relate to the continued migration towards 3G.