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Willcom Sees Strong Initial Sales

Willcom Sees Strong Initial Sales“Despite the high prices, there were huge line-ups waiting to buy the new Willcom PHSes,” said my Kiwi pal in an email last night. It looks like some of Willcom’s PHS phones appear to be selling well on the strength of flat-rate voice and data and handsets that are at least comparable to the high-end 3G cellular models from the Big Three carriers. Is this a hint of price destruction to come when the new licensees jump into the market in 2006?

“It normally takes about 20 minutes to get a new phone, but the wait for the new Willcom models on the first day of sales was over an hour and a half. A day or two later and the long lines have vanished,” added Keith Wilkinson, a long-time Japan hand and a keen watcher of all things electronic.

He was referring to the WX300K, WX310K and WX310SA, from Kyocera and Sanyo, as initially reported by WWJ in October, the first in a new series of PHS models. PHS is the shorter-range, non-cellular standard that has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity due to lower costs of usage and flat-rate pricing. According to Willcom, phones could be reserved starting on 11 November, and became or will become available in shops on the 18th (WX300K, silver and ochre), the 25th (WX310K, silver & pink; WX310SA, silver & red) and the 30th (WX310K, other color).

Finding the Camera Phone Creator

Back in July of this year, analyst Jon Peddie was on a mission to find the inventor of the camera phone — a product category that is responsible for a significant portion of the current mobile phone boom. Peddie found the first camera phone, but couldn’t identify the precise inventor, and wasn’t sure if there even was a single person who could be found. TG Daily picked up where Peddie left off — and got lucky in Japan. (Seems it was not Sharp’s J-SH04 after all! — Ed.)

Japan Approves Three New Groups for 3G

Japan Approves Three New 3G CarriersBack in 1999, when I was editing Computing Japan magazine, we ran an article entitled “Third Generation Mobile: Three Groups for 3G” looking at the three groups — NTT DoCoMo, IDO-DDI (later, with KDD, KDDI) and IMT-2000 Planning Corp. (later J-Phone) — lining up for a new license. The prediction was that “success for the 3G business depends on the digital content.” Now, 7 years later, three new hopefuls are lining up in a far more mature market, and not only content but also terminals, churn, number portability and voice versus data will be significant factors.

On November 10, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said it would grant three new carriers licenses to operate in the 1.7 and 2 GHz bands; BB Mobile of Softbank Corp. and e-mobile of eAccess Ltd. will offer services based on W-CDMA technology while IPMobile Inc. will offer Japan’s first TD-CDMA-based services. The three are expected to launch later in 2006.

The three newcomers are entering a highly competitive market dominated by three existing incumbents: NTT DoCoMo Inc., KDDI Corp. and Vodafone K.K., which reported a collective 89.4 million subscribers as of October 31. The new players are expected to expand the variety of wireless services and pricing levels available, providing more choice and lowering costs — not least of all for terminals — according to one ministry quotation.

KDDI's New Trio of 3G handsets

KDDI's New Trio of 3G handsets Japan’s KDDI is promoting three new handsets coming out later this month that they believe mix fun with functionality for a package of business and entertainment features.

The W33SA from Sanyo, W32T by Toshiba and Kyocera’s A5515K each pack a push-to-talk style function. The trio of handsets comes equipped with Hello Messenger, a live audio-chat style service for up to five people that supports voice, image and text simultaneously. Twelve original cartoon-style avatars by well-known Japanese illustrator Kohei Yamashita will frolic on screen as stand-ins for chat members who can type or talk through the conversation over the handsets.

Targeted at young, female users, chat members register each other’s number in their handset to get started. Prices for the service of course vary depending on if subscribers have a flat rate package or not. If not then there is a charge incurred for sending photos or data. A special introductory rate for the audio portion of Hello Messenger until April, for example, will be 1.05 yen per 20 seconds. Scheduled to start service in late November.

Firm Grip On Handset Design

Today, TechFaith employs 1,800 designers and hardware and software engineers, occupying four floors of an old TV factory in a grubby industrial district near Beijing’s Fourth Ring Road. The company has developed more than 100 handset designs for 9 of the top 10 Chinese manufacturers as well as Japan’s NEC, Kyocera, and Mitsubishi.

Willcom Launches Feature Packed Mobile Phones for Fall

Willcom Launches Feature Packed Mobile Phones for FallJapan’s Willcom will launch four PHS mobile handsets this November packed with many of the same functions as high-end DoCoMo or KDDI models. Functions for the WX310K and WX300K both by Kyocera; Sanyo’s WX310SA; and JRC WX310J include a PC document viewer, NetFront V3.3 internet browser, Intellisync for Outlook, fingerprint authentification, music player, pixel reader, macromedia flash, even Bluetooth — all at rates the bigger carriers will find hard to match.

PHS (personal handyphone system) subscriber numbers, long in free fall against 3G mobile carriers, are slowly climbing back from the abyss thanks to low-cost fixed-rate subscriber packages that are saving consumers bundles of yen. Currently Willcom has an inter-service flat call rate under 3000 yen ($26) per month. The company has announced they will introduce a flat rate mobile data fee of just 3,800 yen ($33) to coincide with the release of the new 300/310 series. PHS subscribers will be able to dig in to a full buffet of mobile services for around 6,700 yen ($58) a month.