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Japan Telcos Announce Fiscal 2007 Results

NTT DoCoMo’s 2007 fiscal year ended on March 31st and the company has posted their earnings release (.pdf) Here. Operating revenues were off 1.6% YoY while operating income of 808.3 billion jpy, or approx. $8B usd, was up 4.5% with the net income growing by 7.4% to 491 billion jpy. Operating revenues, operating income, income before taxes and net income for fiscal 2008 were estimated to increase 1.2%, 2.7%, 4.3% and 2.4% respectively. See the details from KDDI and SoftBank Mobile – as available – after the jump.

KDDI to Launch U.S. Operations

This article by the Asahi Shimbun, stating that KDDI will launch services on Sprint Nextels network, has created alot of buzz across the web in the last 24hrs. According to that story the company “… has obtained a business license to serve as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in 49 of the 50 U.S. states”. While of course it makes perfect sense to us for KDDI to consider how they might port the lessons learned here into other developing markets, the details provided from this original source raised more questions than they answered. The Asahi quotes un-named officials, no announcement appears on either of the carriers websites, saying that “KDDI Mobile” will begin offering full-scale services in the U.S. by mid-April.

KDDI Expands Licensing With Narus

Narus, Inc. announced that Japanese carrier KDDI has expanded its licensing agreement to include its new PC Site Viewer application. Narus and KDDI, along with their integration partner NEC, have been working together for more than five years building one of the most progressive 3G networks in Japan. Narus is the mediation platform for KDDI’s EVDO and IXRT networks. With the expansion of Narus’ mediation solution to KDDI’s PC Site Viewer, a browser that enables mobile handsets to access regular PC Web pages, the Narus mediation solution for all of KDDI’s network, will provide detailed customer usage information for all IP services.

Software Lets Mobiles Control PCs

Toshiba has developed software to remotely operate a PC using a mobile phone over a cellular network. The software will be available in Japan, in cooperation with one of Japan’s cellular networks in late March, a Toshiba executive said in a press conference today. The software, called Ubiquitous Viewer, is installed on the mobile phone and on a client computer running Windows. The software recreates the desktop of a PC or notebook PC on the mobile phone’s screen, allowing the user to complete tasks such as reading e-mails and editing documents on the PC via the phone.

DoCoMo Pre-Christmas Press Briefing

DoCoMo Pre-Christmas Press BriefingDoCoMo Chieftain Tachikawa gave his final press conference of the year and looked happier and more relaxed than we’ve seen him for some time. And he should. After good first half financials and FOMA finally taking off, he was able to give a good spin on DoCoMo’s performance and managed to sling an arrow at Microsoft, as only a spin-off from a monopoly can! Japan’s phone market unexpectedly achieved solid 1H growth; net additions were almost the same 1H 03. 2H was down, but overall growth for DoCoMo will be 80 percent of 02. Japan’s phone market is NOT saturated. DoCoMo still thinks it will achieve 8 percent growth. Non-voice is growing, as well as voice. Japan’s penetration rate still lower than Europe. DoCoMo still sees growth opportunities. Full Program Run-time 20:24

Importing Wireless Products from Abroad

Importing Wireless Products from AbroadDo you have BREW contents that you want to put into 10 million cellphone browsers? We know somebody who wants to hear from you. Spun out of trading powerhouse Nissho Iwai and backed by camera giant Olympus, ITX E-Globaledge Corp. is a small company hungry to meet U.S., Korean and European ventures to introduce your BREW content, and your cutting-edge soft- and hardware, to a company with a huge appetite: KDDI. More than just a go-between to help customize ideas for the Japanese market, ITX also creates its own content. More interestingly, it recently put $4 million into a Seattle-based venture blending XML. Full Program Run-time 18:28

Tokyo Motor Show: Telematics To Go, Anyone?

Tokyo Motor Show: Telematics To Go, Anyone?Japan is the nation of early adopters for mobile, but there’s one consumer app. that went flat and is now undergoing heart massage by some of the country’s biggest and best companies: Telematics is the name, and subscribers is the game. 2004 is supposed to be the year when Japanese Telematics Ver.2 gets cranked into first gear and out of the highway rest area (it was also supposed to happen this year.. shuuush!) Japanese Telematics comes in three main flavors, and in this program you’ll get a taste of two of them. We managed to go for a ride on Toyota’s G-Book and learn more about their new sense of community offering. And we interviewed Nissan –which has great future plans you’ll get to virtually-virtually test drive– about City Browse. Full Program Run-time 21:58

Tokyo Game Show: A War On Java BREWing

Tokyo Game Show: A War On Java BREWingWe talked to a number of new and established Japanese companies and they were pessimistic about the BREW platform. The general consensus from most developers was that BREW is a bind: without a market, they won’t invest the three or four months it takes to develop a BREW games app. But without the app, where’s the market. Then we had a fascinating chat with the CEO of HelloNet, a Korean BREW contents developer, about their real-time multiplayer network games that are set to roll out here soon. Our interview with Sammy Networks yielded an interesting comment on who to watch for the next mobile gaming market boom in Asia. You better grab a coffee and sit back to enjoy a whole new kind of 3G -Games, Geeks and Girls- video show. Full Program Run-time 21:41

Tokyo Game Show 2003: Mobile Gaming BREW's Up

By December HelloNet Co. Ltd. of Busan, Korea, will launch a Massive Multi-Player (interactive) BREW based game in Japan making use of KDDI’s CDMA 1X speed, Chief Executive Officer Lee Hwan Joon told WWJ at last week’s Tokyo Game Show. He also put us straight on a few pertinent questions floating around the event. Namely: Is BREW difficult to write? Will MMPGs be too expensive for users? There just won’t be a market for such apps, right? The answer we got from Lee was NO-NO and thrice NO. With a grin and a game that supports 8,000 players acting out on his phone, he was of the opinion that BREW’s a better way to go for the next generation of interactive, keitai-based games. Lee was the most upbeat developer we met at TGS, which itself was an upbeat show. With the mobile games industry set to explode, the evidence is that new JAVA games continue to rock and developers need to be brave if they are to take advantage of 3G’s potential. Oh, and by the way, in our upcoming video program you’ll be some of the first to see Final Fantasy played on a ‘coming soon’ FOMA handset.