NTT DoCoMo today announced their Q3 results (1 October – 31 December) for fiscal 2006 with year-ending March 31st 2007. Reported sales rose 0.4% with operating profit up 18% during the period, however net income fell to 93.9 bln JPY compared with 131.1 bln JPY in Q3 of fiscal 2005. The 28% year-on-year decline was caused by the one-time profit (40 bln JPY) booked from the operators sale of its stake in KPN Mobile in Q3 last year.
Marcus Evans held their 6th edition of the annual Global 3G Forum from 22nd to 25th January here in Japan “… the most successful test bed for new mobile technologies and products”. Wireless Watch was on-hand, as usual, to meet some of the brightest minds in the business and we caught-up again with well-known telecoms author, consultant and all-round very smart thinker Tomi Ahonen**. Our video interview with him at the 3G Forum last year is Here.
According to Tomi, the big news from 2006 centered on the rest of the world finally breaking away from the panic about 3G, the largest infrastructure investment ever. “In 2005 there was alot of despair and worry about whether 3G would happen.. then in 2006 3G started to roll-out everywhere and countries like Japan and South Korea reached 50% penetration.” The other notable development he mentioned was digital communities and their migration for mobile. He goes on to quote Informa’s recent report which estimated social networking revenues on mobile at $3.5 Billion in 2006.
While it should be no surprise that he predicts mobile commerce will be a major topic in 2007, find out why, and indeed what else he’s expecting in the foreseeable future. Tomi’s a well-tuned voice in the mobile business and we always enjoy spending some time to hear what’s on his mind.. enjoy the show.
We also managed to get Tony DeVuro, Director of Product Marketing, from AOL Mobile on camera for a chat about the new service they will be announcing next month. Stay tuned for that.
What’s this?? … mobs of Flying Ketai Pigs..?
Actually, 2007 promises to be far more interesting than even that cheeky title! Here goes our official WWJ Fearless Forecast for 2007 – all in one – huge – breath!
2007 promises to be far more interesting than even that cheeky title! Here goes our official WWJ Fearless Forecast for 2007 – all in one – huge – breath! M-commerce: The carriers? FeliCa-based services will continue to grab serious market share. At the end of 2006, DoCoMo had over 1 mln customers for their DCMX mobile credit-card service alone, not to mention the 18.3 mn regular FeliCa handsets in use as of 31 December. KDDI and SoftBank have FeliCa user bases in the millions as well.. grab a cuppa for after the jump!
Kyocera Wireless Corp. and Runcom Technologies disclosed a development agreement aimed at leveraging Kyocera’s expertise in wireless device development and Runcom’s leading chipset technologies. The companies are working closely to develop exciting new consumer electronic devices employing the latest in broadband Mobile WiMAX technology. Kyocera and Runcom worked closely over the last several months in the early development of multiple classes of Mobile WiMAX terminals.
SoftBank Mobile rounded out the Japanese operators spring handset announcement rush this week by announcing a new fleet of models – Flash site Here – with major bling factor. According to the companies announcement most models will be available by March which is traditionally the busiest handset replacement month of the year in Japan as the new academic and fiscal year begins on April 1st. Masayoshi Son did his best Steve Jobs impersonation, black turtle-neck and all, however there was no announcement related to the recent news from MacWorld.
Models of interest include the 911T by Toshiba, a candybar slider with a huge 3-inch screen running on high speed HSDPA has a 3.2-megapixel camera, 1GB of internal memory, 1Seg digital tv, it’s FeliCa m-commerce enabled and comes complete with a pair of Oakley Thumps which connect via bluetooth. Other new handset highlights include; the 812SH Pantone series by Sharp (pictured right) with 20 different colors to choose from, the 812T Kodomobile model designed especially for children and Nokia’s E-61 Communicator – labeled as X01NK – which has Japanese Kanji text input and comes Wi-Fi enabled.
There are three new phones from Samsung including the 708SC slider which claims the title for the worlds thinnest 3G handset at a mere 8.4mm thick and the 707SC Swarovski Crystal version which is a follow-up to the earlier 705SH model [.jpg image] which sold-out the day it was launched last fall.
There have been over 30 new handset models announced by the three main operators during the last week for content and application developers, industry wags and ultimately the marketplace at large to chew over.. whew! WWJ subscribers login for more comments, photos and a video-link to watch the actual presentation (70 minute runtime) from the press conference held in Shinagawa on Thursday.
To support their goal of creating the world’s first globally competitive, Linux-based software platform for mobile devices, Motorola, NEC, NTT DoCoMo, Panasonic Mobile Communications, Samsung Electronics, and Vodafone announced today the official launch of the LiMo Foundation. A not-for-profit organization, the LiMo Foundation is aimed at blending the community-based development benefits of transparency, innovation and scalability with the best development practices from the mobile community to create an innovative new business model.
