DoCoMo
DoCoMo

DoCoMo

Japan Ministry to Study Handset Subsidies

Japan’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is considering a plan to allow mobile telephone subscribers to choose lower communications charges in return for paying more for handsets, ministry officials said Friday. At present, mobile phone carriers such as NTT DoCoMo Inc. sell handsets at steep discounts and cover the costs by adding charges to monthly communications rates, creating an unfair cost disadvantage for subscribers who use the same handsets for a long time. The study group is expected to work out a report on the pricing options in July.

DoCoMo Quadruple Play Includes Windows DRM, HSDPA, 7 New Credit-Card Phones

F902iSIn a rare quadruple play, DoCoMo today issued three new handset announcements plus one new technology tie-up press release. The first handset news includes the long-expected new credit-card-enabled phones that will come bundled with the carrier’s ‘DCMX’ Java-and-IC-chip-based credit card. The new 902iS series FOMA 3G handsets mark the latest step in DoCoMo’s transformation from Just Another Mobile Phone Company to full-featured financial services provider.

The carrier also said it had agreed with Microsoft to incorporate Windows Media technologies in DoCoMo’s F902iS 3G handset, to be released this summer. The first-time collaboration means that the F902iS will support both Windows Media Audio and Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10 for Portable Devices (WMDRM-PD). The carrier will also evaluate the incorporation of Windows Media Video, Microsoft’s version of SMPTE VC-1 technologies, in future handsets. The press release states that incorporating Windows Media technologies will enable NTT DoCoMo handsets to play music downloaded to a PC from more than 100 online music services around the world, and also support music content ripped from CDs in the highly efficient Windows Media Audio format (login for details).

IDC: i-mode has what it takes to succeed

IDC has released a research report (spotted on IT Wire) examining the consumer mobile segment that finds that DoCoMo’s i-mode platform has “the qualities needed to combat the accelerating downward spiral of ARPU for cellular services.” The research firm concluded that, as a mobile market matures and its subscriber base reaches saturation, mobile operators begin to feel the creep of stagnation and commoditisation, accelerating the downward spiral of ARPU. A new IDC study, titled “Follow The Yellow Brick Road: The Consumer, The Carrier, and The i-mode Platform” examines the roadmap of NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode platform and how emerging mobile non-voice applications have used it as a vehicle to enter the mobile market. While we wholeheartedly agree with the findings, the results in practice have been highly variable at best. Only Bouyges Telecom in France has had any real success with i-mode while several markets — including Italy, Germany and Israel — have seen abject failures. The devil is in the details and if you don’t execute well and account for structural differences in the market, i-mode may not be the goose that lays a golden egg… it might just be a goose.

DoCoMo plans music download service in June

NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan’s largest mobile phone operator, plans to launch a music download service as early as June to compete with rival KDDI Corp.’s popular version, the Nihon Keizai business daily reported on Thursday. The paper said DoCoMo will offer thousands of songs for about 300 yen each, similar to the price offered by KDDI’s “au” mobile unit.

DoCoMo Releases FY 2005 Fiscal Results

NTT DoCoMo today announced consolidated financial results for the company and its subsidiaries for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2006. According to the companies published highlights: operating revenues were down 1.6%, operating income was up 6.2%, income before taxes was off 26.1% and net income was down 18.3% year-on-year (link for the full 47-page report is available after log-in).

Sharp Tops Japan Mobile

Sharp Corp. overtook NEC Corp. and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. as Japan’s biggest mobile phone maker by shipments for the first time, MM Research Institute said in a report dated yesterday. Shipments by Sharp gained 20 percent to 7.6 million units in the year ended March 31, accounting for 16.3 percent of the total 46.3 million shipments, the researcher said.