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KDDI Hits BREW Milestone

QUALCOMM just announced a number of milestones underscoring how KDDI’s wireless data service, powered by BREW, continues to spur the demand for mobile applications in the Japanese market. In January 2007, KDDI subscribers downloaded more than seven million BREW applications to their mobile phones. The cumulative number of BREW application downloads is now more than 160 million since KDDI first launched BREW in February 2003. Gaming has proven to be one of the most active areas of mobile downloads. According to KDDI, its catalog of high-quality mobile games has grown from 2,000 applications in January 2006 to more than 3,000 gaming applications in January 2007.

Napster Japan – The First Six Months

On October 3 of last year, Napster Japan launched the first online music subscription service in Japan with an ‘all-you-can-eat’ model – allowing subscribers to download and play as much music as they like for a flat monthly fee. Accompanied by a massive marketing campaign featuring oversized bar-code poster ads, the Napster Japan launch attracted a great deal of attention and media coverage. When the company announced that over 2 million songs had been ‘shifted’ (downloaded for playing) in the first week after launch, it looked as though Napster might well be on track to replace iTunes as Japan’s most popular online music service. So how have the first six months gone for Japan’s first and (so far) only online subscription music service?

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.

Japan Mobile Subscriber Statistics

The Telecommunication Carriers Assoc. (TCA) released their official updated Japan mobile subscriber details (see graphic on our left nav.) for the month ending March 2007. While we had mentioned several times recently that March is the traditional handset replacement month, even WWJ was impressed to see the volume of activity achieved. KDDI’s AU brand continued to show the way with a net increase of 530,000 while DoCoMo, with their latest models line-up becoming more widely available, added a respectable 298,000 new contracts. SoftBank Mobile reported a total gain of 127,000 compared to only 63,000 year-on-year for March 2006 when the company was still running as Vodafone. By far the most interesting numbers relate to the continued migration towards 3G.

EMOBILE Selects InnoPath's OTA

InnoPath announced that EMOBILE has selected their Integrated Mobile Device Management Solution (iMDM) to deliver over-the-air firmware updates and configuration management. EMOBILE will be deploying InnoPath’s Firmware Manager allowing for software and firmware updates, in addition to offering its Configuration Manager enabling remote configuration of settings and new services; both applications being offered over-the-air, in real time. With this announcement, the company now has agreements tied with KDDI, Softbank, and eMobile and license agreements with several of the handset manufacturers which are sold under the DoCoMo brand.

Amp'd Mobile Launches in Japan

As announced last November Amp’d Mobile rolled-out in Japan this month via a new portal service designed exclusively for KDDI subscribers. Amp’d Mobile-Japan debuted with its first “Amp’d Original Presentation” called Boston Gyro: The Big League Report provides real-time baseball reports covering Japanese players in the US from sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe. All Amp’d Japan content is delivered in Japanese or in English with Japanese subtitles.