DoCoMo
DoCoMo

DoCoMo

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.

DoCoMo to Shift Global i-mode Strategy

NTT DoCoMo Inc. will shift its global strategy in the mobile phone business from capital investment to technological tie-ups, Kyodo news reported late last night.According to the story, NTT president Norio Wada, in what amounted to a veiled attack on former chief Keiji Tachikawa, said DoCoMo planned a smarter overseas investment strategy than his predecessor. “It is possible we will have partners through technological tie-ups or business affiliations,” Wada said in an interview with Kyodo News.

DoCoMo Pins 3G Hopes on New Handsets

DoCoMo will seek to revitalise lacklustre sales of its FOMA service with the launch of three new handsets. From next month DoCoMo will start receiving an estimated 6m 3G handsets from NEC, Panasonic and Fujitsu in a bid to increase its 3G customer base to 10.6m. In conjunction with the new handsets, DoCoMo has earmarked Y120bn ($1.1bn) of tariff cuts during the current financial year.

Mobile Payment Parking Lots

Japan’s leading parking lot operator Park 24 has announced the launch of an experiment designed to test a FeliCa-based cashless payment solution at its Times 24-hour metered parking lots. The experiment, to last through August 15, supports the N504iC and SO504iC. Park 24 currently has 5,225 parking sites with a total of 81,364 parking spaces across Japan.

DoCoMo President-Elect Nakamura: A Man with a Mission

In an intervew with Nikkei BP, NTT DoCoMo’s new president Masao Nakamura has said he has three major goals; increase 3G FOMA subscribers, dig out new revenue sources such as mobile e-commerce and enhance customer satisfaction. After posting its highest ever operating profit of 1, 103 billion yen in the year to March 2004, it certainly looks as if Nakamura has his work cut out for him, especially as — on the surface of it at least — KDDI au seems to have consistently knocked the socks off DoCoMo in terms of gleaning 3G subs.

KDDI, Vodafone Enlist Artists to the Cause

Yesterday, the Wireless Watch Japan site was slammed by record traffic after we posted our first big Net news scoop: Casio’s announcement of what appears to be the world’s first 3-megapixel camera phone, due for release later this summer via KDDI. And that wasn’t the only big Japan handset news from the past few days: both KDDI (working with Hitachi) and NTT DoCoMo have announced concept models capable of receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasts, while Vodafone’s been mentioned as working on new karaoke-enabled handsets with Sharp and Toshiba. Phones in Japan have become culturally connected communicators and terminal makers who think more like artists and less like engineers will flourish.