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First Korean 3G Phone, New 3G Services for Vodafone KK

First Korean 3G Phone, New 3G Services for Vodafone KKAt a Tokyo press conference today, Vodafone Japan announced four new 3G terminals including a model provided by Korean maker Samsung. This is the first Samsung model to become available in Japan. The Vodafone V804SS (image at right) is said to be the world’s thinnest 3G handset and features a 2.3-in QVGA main LCD display, 2 cameras, stereo twin speakers, music features and the “Deru Moji” 3D Pictogram Display. The other handsets include models from Sharp (V804SH), NEC (V804N) and Toshiba (V904T).

The devices should be available in the market by mid-March.

With these latest models, Vodafone Japan also introduced three new 3G services: “Deru Moji 3D Pictogram Display,” which enables pop-up 3D animations in received messages and is compatible with the 804SS, 904T and 804N; the “Vodafone live! CAST” service, which delivers “mobile magazines” to handsets overnight and appears to be similar to KDDI’s modestly successful EZ Channel content delivery service (compatible with the 904T and 804N); and, the “Vodafone Address Book,” a service that lets customers back up their handset address book to a network server so information remains safe even when a handset is lost or broken (compatible with the 904T). WWJ subscribers log in for more details and images.

DoCoMo Announces 702i-series 3G Handsets

DoCoMo Announces 702i-series 3G HandsetsNTT DoCoMo held a press conference in downtown Tokyo this afternoon to announce the spring roll-out of five new handsets in the 702i-series for FOMA 3G phones (Sharp, NEC, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi and Panasonic). The series includes three ‘designer’ models — a first for DoCoMo. The carrier invited three prominent designers to work on the SH702iD, the N702iD and the F702iD. If the solid success with designer models enjoyed by competitors KDDI and Vodafone is any hint, DoCoMo should do modestly well with this new low-budget series.

Big D appears unconcerned over the potential conflict in the series’ naming. The three designer 702s are dubbed “iD” — possibly for “i-mode designer” or “independent designer.” However, the Fujitsu model is also FeliCa- and mobile Suica-compatible, and all FeliCa models to date have been dubbed “iC” (indicating ‘IC chip’). Should the Fujitsu therefore be the F702iCD? The giant carrier also seems keen on promoting its new iD credit-card (website) having created this cool ‘Vitruvian Man’ logo that we’ve noticed splashed all over Tokyo the last few weeks. That new m-commerce application is included on the Fujitsu 702iD model (but not the SH702iD or the N702iD) and we expect there could well be some confusion in the marketplace between these unrelated iD brands.

This is the first 70x-series to offer automatic Security Scan, which uses automatic downloads in the background to update phones with the latest security software from DoCoMo. The five models will be exhibited at Aoyama Spiral from January 17 to 22. More details on today’s press conference after the jump

Sharp 2006 Handset Shipments

Sharp expects its total handset shipments, to grow 18 percent year-on-year to 13 million units in 2006, with 3G-enabled models accounting for 50 percent of shipments, said Noboru Hanioka, head of Sharp’s overseas telecom marketing division. By 2008, Sharp’s overall handset shipments should reach 20 million units, Hanioka predicted.

Major Mobile Commerce Trials Announced

Major Mobile Commerce Trials AnnouncedA group of major m-commerce companies announced a large-scale U.S. trial last week to include contactless payment, mobile content and premium arena services at Philips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. The companies claim the trial will be the first large-scale test of next-generation mobile-phone applications in North America. The grouping includes Chase, Cingular Wireless, Nokia, Philips, Visa USA and others. The contactless payment functionality will be based on Near Field Communication (NFC) technology first developed by Sony and Philips. Other NFC trials are underway in Germany and France.

Wireless Watchers will know that the Sony/Philips NFC technology is also powering the super-successful “FeliCa”-branded mobile contactless payment services in Japan and has been adopted by NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone as the de facto market standard for m-commerce, e-wallets, transportation and other peer-to-peer data transfer services. Sony first deployed NFC on the Octopus card in Hong Kong in 1997 and rolled their mobile handset trial ran in Japan in December 2003 — see WWJ video here. Today, over 7 million FeliCa-enabled phones have already been sold by DoCoMo alone.

One might think the two-year jump on deployment and commercial experience, not to mention brand equity, in Japan would motivate Sony to transplant an obvious success story from Tokyo to markets elsewhere. Instead, it looks like the wheel is being reinvented all over again.

Vodafone Releases 804SH Wallet-Phone

Vodafone K.K. announced today that it will commence sales of the Vodafone 804SH [ .jpg image ], a new 3G handset by Sharp, on 22 December 2005 in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions, and all other regions on 17 January 2006. The 804SH has a new contrasting design with the upper and under body of the handset featuring “different forms and material feel”. The 804SH also features ‘Custom Screens’ for menu screen icon and wallpaper customisation, allowing customers to express their individuality from the display screen. This is the carriers second Osaifu-Keitai (mobile wallet) handset with embedded IC-chip to support Vodafone live! FeliCa and their first 3G phone with the Motion Control Sensor that responds to movements.

Latest Release of Skype for Mobile Japan Friendly

Latest Release of Skype for Mobile Japan Friendly by Mobikyo KKSkype has just introduced two new, updated clients for the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform: Skype for Pocket PC Beta version 1.2 and Skype for Pocket PC low CPU Beta version. This latest release claims full support for low-CPU devices with 300+ MHz processors. Users will be able to download and install the Internet telephony application with Danish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese Brazil, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish language plug-ins and it also supports the new call-forwarding feature and landscape mode for 240×240 and 480×480 screens.

We expect to see even more buzz on this development in the local wireless community with Willcom’s new Zero3 dual-mode Smartphone, made by Sharp, which just hit the street here last week. In fact, eager buyers were lining up to order the unit in early December and we’ve even noticed a Wiki site [Japanese only] dedicated to the Zero3, one of the hottest QWERTY handsets available in the domestic market.

The potential of VoIP flat-rate voice calling for mobile — including long-distance — takes another huge step with this announcement. Yes, it’s a narrow niche of users who will adopt this here… for now. However, for incumbent cellcos, the kanji is on the wall and they will undoubtedly have to respond to this truly disruptive technology if they wish to save their voice-centric business model.