KDDI 3Q Rock'in Results and BREW Comes to a Boil
Berman warns, however, that with a typical handset cost of 37,000 yen in the latest quarter, “it will require about 23 months to cover [the] cost for upgrade customers.” He goes on to state that this creates a difficult situation for KDDI, wherein there’s lots of room for concern for the cost of the 2G-to-3G upgrade cycle. Remember, too, that KDDI has committed to launching a 1X EV-DO upgrade in late 2003. Will it have to commit to another two-year cycle to convert subscribers to the new system? If so, the expense half of their balance sheet may get a little out of control no matter how strong the revenue side remains.
Cees van den Heijkant, CEO of KPN Mobile The Netherlands, knows wireless Internet almost better than DoCoMo does. His company studied the model, stripped it down to basics, and last April birthed a bouncing baby i-mode that now claims over 200,000 subscribers (starting with only a single, less-than-spectacular handset, no less). Not bad for a process that took a year-and-a-half, required entirely new thinking on how to manage data services, and involved a lot of effort to, as he puts it, “understand how you’re going to bring the content to the customers.” Don’t miss this program!
Dr. Kamel Maamaria, head of telecoms practice at consultancy AT Kearney, says that lots of people – especially in Europe – have tried to brush off the i-mode model as ‘a Japanese thing.’ But he says that no other model has shown that operators can make money from content. “Vodafone launching V live! is one of the best things that ever happened to DoCoMo – because what Vodafone is doing validates the i-mode model,” he adds. Watch Part I of our in-depth report highlighting Gurus and Deep Thinkers from this month’s 3G Mobile World Forum.