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Mobile Wallets for 1 Billion People

DigitaLife ’04, a consumer electronics exhibition to be held in the Melbourne Exhibition Centre, will offer patrons the ability to carry their wallets, digitally, inside their mobile phones. Upon purchase of their tickets, visitors will be able to carry their event tickets, business cards, ShowCash debit cards and a loyalty card, all in their phones. Tickets will be issued via SMS, and ID cards saved as address book entries. These tickets and ID cards can then be scanned, as if they were physically presented in their paper or plastic form.

NEC Scales for New Heights in China's Mobile Telecoms

NEC Corporation today announced the establishment of new business structure “NEC Telecommunications (China)” and the appointment of business veteran Brian (Lei) Lu as head of the new structure to pursue mobile communications business in China. The new business structure is the results of reorganization among NEC’s telecom manufacturing, marketing, service and maintenance operations in China to fully adapt to mobile internet and 3G mobile business.

100th Webcast: Japan Mobile Rocks!

100th Webcast: Japan Mobile Rocks!From Tokyo’s ultra-buttoned-down cellco headquarters to the funky, cell-phone-using youth masses, Wireless Watch Japan brings you first-hand video reporting on this country’s mobile revolution — and now we’ve done it 100 times! To celebrate, the WWJ team decided to show you more of what makes Japan’s wireless Internet the world’s test-bed for high-speed W-CDMA and CDMA 2000 networks and ubersophisticated mobile applications. Today’s program serves, we think, as a showcase for the incredible developments happening in the Japan market — and provides highlights from some of the past episodes we’ve had the pleasure to bring you. Phew! Happy 100th webcast to us! Full Program Run-time 5:41.. Oh, wait there’s more… 😎

Japan Cell Phones: Most Individualized, Intimate Technology

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) isn’t particularly renowned for exciting, fun-to-read reports. The global standards body tends to produce authoritative but somewhat plodding publications that delve into the arcana of topics like radio spectrum management and regulatory trends. But a recent case study examining how Japan’s mobile Internet works and highlighting some of the key technology and applications driving 3G is refreshingly non-academic, not to mention pretty darn accurate.

Vodafone Enacts Voluntary Retirement

Vodafone K.K. announced today that its Board of Directors passed a resolution to enact a voluntary retirement program. The program includes a special allowance in addition to the normal retirement allowance as well as job placement support. Some 600 employees are eligible for the program. The announcement comes as no surprise in light of the massive losses announced earlier.

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.