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2004 to be the Year of 3G in Japan

A quarter of all mobile-phone users in Japan are expected to switch to a 3G service by March 2005. Analysts say DoCoMo, Japan’s largest wireless carrier, could add a million customers a month in 2004, once improved phones are released. Meanwhile, DoCoMo’s rivals, KDDI and Vodafone KK, are also expanding, leading executives to predict that 2004 will be the year of 3G in Japan. “If 3G is validated here, a lot of carriers and suppliers will point to Japan as a success,” said Mark Berman, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston in Tokyo. “This could touch off a 3G rally” worldwide.

DoCoMo Unveils FOMA 900i 3G i-mode Phones

“This is just the beginning,” Takeshi Natsuno, Managing Director of DoCoMo’s i-mode Planning Department, told Wireless Watch of the new flagship 5 FOMA 900i handsets that DoCoMo showed today and that should be released in or around February 2004. Before about 600 journalists, Natsuno’s message was that, after two years of battling battery/bulk problems, here finally, were 3G phones capable of 2G performance in terms of standby time and weight. But beyond this, DoCoMo has clearly worked hard to differentiate the phones from being more than “Super 505i” and hinted that the company was considering lowering data packet rates to compete with KDDI WIN and Vodafone K.K.’s recent Happy Packet rate cuts. But wow! What’s loaded in the the new fab 5, for example 500 Kbytes of gaming capability will be inevitably be the Final Fantasy for gamers (the game appears to be preloaded) and a real nightmare for competitors. Natsuno san, not known for being shy on stage at these sort of events, seemed to speak from the heart when he called the lineup the “best mobile phones in the world!” The critical question for DoCoMo, however, is differentiation from the already all-singing, all-dancing 505 series, and quite a few of our doubts were answered. But questions also remain. We’ll have a video program on the show, the phones and the figures behind the models up soon. Before that, here’s some of the upgraded low down on the fantatabulous 900is. And THEN there are the P900iV and the F900iT.

IDC Doubtful on 2 Megapixel Camera Phone Rollout

Most of Japan’s next-generation cell phones are going to have 2 megapixel cameras next year, right? There is already a supply crunch developing for CMOS sensors, right? The global shipment of cellies is going to near 490 million units in 2004, right? And, finally, Japanese makers are gearing up for an assault on the world market via Vodafone, right? Probably not, don’t think so, well if you are very lucky and Vodafone central is a long way from Tokyo- there is something fishy about Vodafone talking up its love of Japanese handsets…these are the sorts of answers that you get if you talk to IDC Japan’s top wireless device analyst Michito (Mitch) Kimura, who has his own take on things. Recently, WWJ listened in on Kimura’s presentation about camera phone trends, followed up with an interview, and came back with the following snapshot.

Vodafone KK: All Quiet on the 3G Front

Prepare for some grim reading. There wasn’t a lot of good news on Vodafone’s Eastern Front, for the short term at least, arising out of Vodafone K.K.’s November 18-announced first-half financials. It is eerily quiet in the Little V machine gun nests out here on the 3G frontier. Vodafone K.K. faces gently sliding ARPU, wilting subscriber uptake and a long haul launch for a fully-fledged rollout of cutting-edge 3G keitai. “Japan Telecom Holdings (JTH) stock finished down 15 percent for the day after posting first half earnings,” notes CSFB senior telecoms analyst Mark Berman. “The market is essentially saying that it has completely lost confidence in both the competitiveness of Vodafone in Japan, and believes further that the current … management is more concerned with appeasing parent Vodafone than it is with rewarding minority shareholders,” he writes this week. On the other hand, the basis for a big comeback could be on the cards for next summer. We’ll give an overview of these points below, but before we start blazing away. ** We’d like to sincerely apologize to Vodafone K.K. for our mucking up an item in the Happy Packet discount series in last week’s newsletter. For the record, packet rate slashes DO apply to 3G, and we said they didn’t ** Honto-ni, gomen nasai, Vodafone-Sama! WWJ subscribers log-on and in..

Vodafone Announces New V801SA by Sanyo 3G Handset

Vodafone K.K. Tokyo, announced today that on December 1 it will commence nationwide sales of the V801SA by Sanyo, a new 3G handset compatible with Vodafone Global Standard (VGS) for use not only in Japan but abroad as well. With the launch of the V801SA, Vodafone K.K. will simultaneously offer new Vodafone live! mobile internet services exclusively for VGS. The V801SA Handset Offers Sha-mail and Movie Sha-mail Access Overseas 3G Vodafone live! to launch with rich and high-speed W-CDMA contents.

CEATEC Japan 2003: The Future of Wireless

CEATEC Japan 2003: The Future of WirelessThe Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) is Asia’s premiere trade show for information technology and electronics sectors, including the fields of imaging, information and communications. This event brings together the complete spectrum of new technologies with a total of 505 companies and organizations, including almost every major Japanese electronics and communications company, 170 exhibitors from 16 counties and regions worldwide, exhibited in 2,460 booths. We visited KDDI to take a closer look at their prototype Sanyo Digital TV phone, talked to the Kyocera folks about the upcoming convergence of GSM and CDMA and interviewed DoCoMo about their IT-House service offering coming soon for 3G FOMA handsets. Full Program Run-time 20:39