According to a story in the Daily Yomiuri, NEC’s next president Kaoru Yano told a recent press conference that “It’s bizarre that there are more than 10 cell phone makers in Japan. We’ll definitely go for a tie-up”, showing his enthusiasm for a rearrangement plan. Following the Nokia-Sanyo announcement and as mentioned in our Predictions for 2006, we are not surprised to hear about his plans for consolidation in the Japanese OEM market.
According to an article on EE Times, during talks that led to Softbank’s acquisition of Vodafone’s Japan unit, the companies also agreed to form a joint venture to deliver data services. The joint venture will be the base of Softbank’s Internet service that will leverage Vodafone’s mobile phone network. The combined effort will challenge NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode service, said Masayoshi Son, president and CEO of Softbank.
The news just hit the wires: Vodafone Group has agreed to sell its stake in its struggling Japanese unit to Softbank Corp. for $11.87 billion in cash. The deal announced on Friday values Vodafone Japan at around 1.8 trillion yen ($15.30 billion) including debt and will allow Vodafone to return 6 billion pounds to shareholders.
Editor’s note: This news will be all over the Web in a few minutes. What a sad end to what could have been a highly valuable synergistic move into the world’s most advanced 3G market! Defeated by fickle consumers, the lack of a low-end tier in the segment, and the challenge of coordinating terminals and technologies across borders, Vodafone is heading home. The price of the deal, a whopping 15 billion bucks, proves that Vodafone KK is a valuable commodity — in the right hands. — Eds.
For Vodafone Japan, the end came not with a bang, but with a whimper. When we arrived at last Monday’s press event – the final one, it turned out, before news of the Japan sell-out hit the Web – the smell of pending doom hung in the air. Ironically, the media briefing bore an optimistic title: the “Future Direction of Product & Service Development.” It was also surprising to see that President Bill Morrow and Chairman Tsuda-san would attend for the 3G roadmap briefing to be given by former J-Phone super-star Ohta-san; WWJ has never seen three Vodafone Big Guys in one room together for a media briefing (perhaps there is safety in numbers)? But when the talk from all three turned out vague and totally avoided any mention of new MVNO’s signing up to resell Vodafone 3G capacity — widely considered to be one of Big Red’s few viable options in Japan — we suspected something was up.
And when we learned that a $49 bn write-off had been announced by London on the same day, it was obvious that the clock had already started ticking down for the carrier’s long-speculated Japan exit. Thus ended, after some five years of trying, what could have been one of the most brilliant tie-ups between a global brand name and world-leading Japanese mobile know-how.
Vodafone, the beleaguered mobile giant, bowed to investor pressure last night, announcing the sale of its failing Japanese division for up to 8 billion British pounds. The proposed sale of the Vodafone KK business to SoftBank, the Japanese internet giant, sent shares in Vodafone surging, adding 5.6 billion to its stock market value. The move to sell the business, which accounts for 20 per cent of Vodafone’s revenues, was also hailed as a landmark move marking the end of the group’s empire-building strategy. A successful sale would mark the first major sell-off by the group in its history.
Vodafone Group Plc said on Friday it was in talks to sell its struggling Japanese business to Internet communications conglomerate Softbank Corp. Sources close to the matter said the two companies were in the final stages of talks, and a deal could be reached as early as this month. Vodafone said the talks may or may not lead to a deal, and a further announcement would be made in due course.
