SoftBank
SoftBank

SoftBank

Carriers Resist Handset Subsidy Regulations

Not surprisingly the battle over proposed new handset regulations is starting to heat up. According to a brief article, KDDI Corp’s President Tadashi Onodera reacted angrily to the recent government report calling for the cellular industry to terminate the practice of offsetting handset discounts with higher service charges. Onodera criticised the plan stating that Japanese mobile operators must be allowed to continue offering rebates. “Amid free competition among three carriers.. I feel odd about the government-backed decision.” We commented on this issue Here in June.

Price War for Corporate Mobile Users

SoftBank Mobile and NTT DoCoMo have both issued press releases this afternoon with new price plans specifically targeted at enterprise users. DoCoMo announced that all corporate customers committing to a two-year contract would receive an immediate 50% discount on basic monthly charges under the new “Office-wari MAX 50” plan. The maximum 50% discount was previously reserved for customers that had subscribed to DoCoMo services for at least 11 consecutive years.

Matsushita Stock Hit by Nokia Battery Recall

Matsushita Electric shares fell to a two-year low after Nokia offered to replace as many as 46 million handset batteries produced by the company on concerns they may overheat. Matsushita, the world’s largest consumer-electronics maker – more widely known as Panasonic – saw it’s shares drop 5 percent on the Tokyo Stock Exchange to 2,015 yen which is the lowest closing price since October 2005.

Acrodea Signs Vivid Deal with DoCoMo

Tokyo-based Acrodea has made several recent announcements, in Japanese only, concerning the adoption of their Vivid product suite with handset makers across all three operators. The most significant of which would be the inclusive licensing agreement concluded with DoCoMo for their Vivid UI to be deployed on all models scheduled to be released going forward. The companies Panorama and 3D Message middleware is also now available on handsets from Sharp and Sanyo via SoftBank Mobile and KDDI respectively. See WWJ’s hands-on demo. video of the UI in action Here.

Media-FLO Info for Japan

Qualcomm quietly opened MediaFLO-info.com on 1 August as part of the companies march to launch their mobile tv broadcast services in Japan. The Japanese only version includes overview materials, links to the FloForum and Mobile Media Planning Corp., which is wholly-owned by SoftBank, along with a sign-up form for their mail magazine. No official press release announcing the new site could be found, in English or Japanese, at the time of this posting.

InnoPath Named Global MDM Leader

IDC released a report earlier this month which identified InnoPath as the strongest MDM (Mobile Device Management) vendor in its ability to gain market share and alignment with market opportunities. Of the top eleven MDM providers, InnoPath was favorably positioned with its ability to leverage market trends, its growth potential, as well as its ability to gain market share.

KDDI Q1 Profit Rises 9% YoY

According to Bloomberg, KDDI announced their first-quarter profit rose 9 percent with net income climbing to 82.5 billion yen ($682 million), or 18,483 yen a share, in the three months ended June 30, from 75.6 billion yen, or 17,296 yen, a year earlier. Operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, climbed 16 percent to 140.9 billion yen.

Niigata Quake Affects Mobile Services

Several mainstream media reports indicate the powerful earthquake which struck northern Japan on Monday has caused disruption to communications services in the country. The earthquake struck just off the coast of Niigata prefecture, the magnitude 6.8 quake registered an intensity of 6+ on Japan’s scale of 0 to 7, in three locations. As a result of the temblor major telecommunications carriers have imposed restrictions on phone calls into and out of the affected area.