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SoftBank Announces FYE 2006 Results

Softbank Corp. announced their FYE 2006 results yesterday indicating that the parent companies fourth-quarter operating profit more than doubled YoY after buying Vodafone mobile-phone unit last spring. The entire presentation video is available in English Here. The 1.66 trillion yen acquisition made Softbank the second-fastest growing company in sales terms on the Nikkei 225 Stock Average for the fiscal first half ended Sept. 30. Operating profit rose to 73.8 billion yen ($615 million) in the three months ended March 31 from 34.4 billion yen in Q4 2005, while sales more than doubled to 721.9 billion yen from 298.4 billion yen, according to Bloomberg.

DoCoMo Flat-Rate Data Subs Top 10 Million

DoCoMo just announced that subscribers to their flat-rate data communication billing plans “pake-hodai” and “pake-hodai full” surpassed the 10 million mark on May 1, 2007. The pake-hodai plan, launched on June 1, 2004, allows 3G FOMA i-mode subscribers unlimited viewing of i-mode content for a flat monthly subscription fee of 4,095 yen (including tax). The pake-hodai full plan, introduced on March 1, 2007, enables subscribers with full-browser handsets to view not only i-mode sites but also browse PC websites for a flat monthly subscription fee of 5,985 yen (including tax). Neither plan applies to data surfing using connected devices, such as PCs, and cannot be used outside Japan.

New Mobile Net Bank Announced

KDDI and Mitsubishi-Tokyo-UFJ Bank have jointly established the Mobile Net Bank Development Corp. in preparation for the two companies to launch their mobile ‘New Bank’. The entity has since been formalizing the business plan, finalizing products and services, and building the required core systems for the New Bank. Subject to approval from the appropriate authorities, KDDI, Mitsubishi-Tokyo-UFJ, and Mobile Net Bank have now agreed on the line-up of products and services and the commercial time frame for launch, which is scheduled to open midway through this financial year.

KDDI Announces FYE 2006 Financials

KDDI has released their final accounting statement for the 2006 fiscal year, which ended 31 March 2007, at a press conference here yesterday afternoon. As reported in several other media channels the company reported a slightly lower net income, down 2%, on the year despite higher operating income thanks to the “au” mobile unit performance, which was up 11%, with net profit from the wireless operations increasing 44%. The company also revealed that they gained a net subscriber addition of 853,000 customers since mobile number portability took effect here in October last year. The full presentation webcast – in English – runs 1:45 and is available in Windows Media player Here.

KDDeye Camera Phone Image Wall

Here’s a super slick offering for AU camera-phone otaku’s. KDDI has launched this new Flash-based image wall [.jpg] in somewhat stealth mode as we just happened to stumble across it by accident recently. Simply put, members can upload their photos, or short video clips, from their handset or desktop PC. They also provide an easy cut & paste java script for those who hope to see their content appear in the rotating loop and so bloggers help spread the word. As part of the companies popular Duo-Blog service it’s yet another great example of youth targeted community based products which clearly is having a positive impact on their monthly new subscriber additions. Nice one!

SoftBank Mobile – New Flagship Store

SoftBank Mobile - New Flagship StoreWith the flurry of activity around here lately we are somewhat behind on rolling out this quick video clip shot at SoftBank Mobile’s new Flagship store in Harajuku. Wisely located in Tokyo’s mobile youth grand central, and mere blocks away from KDDI’s Designing Studio, the company was handing out chocolates (a nice touch for Valentines day) and even had a few SoftBank Hawks baseball team personalities in the house to help celebrate their New Open launch event.

While Kitty-chan was apparently not available to promote her newly announced Swarovski Crystal handsets there was a good selection of the latest super sparkle designs, under glass, front and center. Of course the colorful 812SH Pantone series by Sharp were also easy to spot, however, for the most part there was not much in the way of selection for live working models on offer. That being said it’s certainly better than this Virtual Life SoftBank Mobile shop and hopefully the company will get more test-drive units on display in the future. As for our first impressions; it’s a definite improvement, in both size and location, when compared to the Vodafone’s earlier Megastore attempt in Shibuya several years ago.