Japan Telecom Holdings owned two-thirds by Britain’s Vodafone Group said on Tuesday that half-year operating profit fell 12 percent due to the hefty cost of building up its 3G network. Its wireless unit, Vodafone KK, known as J-Phone until September, scrambled to expand the area coverage of its high-speed 3G network this year in a bid to catch up with NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Corp.
The developer of China’s first 3G mobile phone set using Chinese standards signed a letter of intent on Sunday with a telecom company on commercialization of the product. Under the deal, the Chongqing Institute of Posts and Telecommunications, the developer, and China Putian Corp, the country’s largest telecom equipment supplier, will jointly set up a production base in Chongqing Municipality, southwest China, for manufacturing TD-SCDMA 3G mobile phones.
Vodafone is expected to announce a huge increase in dividend payments when it unveils half-year profits on Tuesday. Analysts believe that new chief executive Arun Sarin will increase dividends by as much as 30% a share for the current financial year. Sarin, who took over from Sir Christopher Gent after the group’s annual meeting in July, is also expected to give further details on the launch of Vodafone’s 3G mobile service.
Today Enfour Group announced launch date for GlobalNavi – their new roaming content on Vodafone Global Standard (VGS) – Vodafone K.K.’s 3GPP-based, high-speed W-CDMA network. This new mobile service, called GlobalNavi, aggregates a full suite of data and voice services catering for the needs of international travellers in their native language. This service takes full advantage of the first truely global data roaming service provided by VGS.
Vodafone K.K. Tokyo, announced today that on December 1 it will commence nationwide sales of the V801SA by Sanyo, a new 3G handset compatible with Vodafone Global Standard (VGS) for use not only in Japan but abroad as well. With the launch of the V801SA, Vodafone K.K. will simultaneously offer new Vodafone live! mobile internet services exclusively for VGS. The V801SA Handset Offers Sha-mail and Movie Sha-mail Access Overseas 3G Vodafone live! to launch with rich and high-speed W-CDMA contents.
Vodafone K.K. announced today that from December 1 it will offer “Vodafone Happy Packet”, a new discount service for packet data communications that makes Vodafone live! for PDC (2.5G) customers even easier to use with savings of up to 80%. Two types of Vodafone Happy Packet discounts will be available—Super (fixed monthly charge of 2,950 yen and 80% off) and Regular (fixed monthly charge of 1,200 yen and approximately 66% off). In addition, all of the fixed monthly charge can be used as a free charge allowance towards packet communications like Super Mail, web browsing, and Sky Mail (SMS) and voice communications as well. At a later date, Vodafone K.K. plans to separately announce details on a packet data communications discount for its Vodafone Global Standard 3G service.
