SoftBank
SoftBank

Disney Mobile to Launch MVNO in Japan

The announcement finally hit the web this week, possibly one of the worst kept secrets in recent times, that SoftBank and Disney have come to terms on rolling out the long-awaited Mickey Mouse MVNO in Japan. An obvious evolution, often speculated during the Vodafone years, for WDIG who launched on i-mode in 2000 and claim over 3M subscribers to their various official content offerings. While Google has dozens of posts about the ‘news’.. Wireless Watch Japan may have a nice little extra scoop!

SoftBank Mobile Winning New Subscriber War

The TCA just announced results for October confirming that SoftBank Mobile has won the most net subscribers for sixth consecutive months. Since the introduction of their so-called White Plan, which includes flat-rate voice calling within their network, the company has continued to grow it’s third place market share. According to the official numbers for October 2006, when SoftBank Mobile re-launched the troubled Vodafone KK operations, they have gained almost 2M new customers.

SoftBank Mobile Unveils New Models

As predicted, SoftBank Mobile announced their latest handset line-up for the upcoming “sales battle” of the winter 2007 season. The company has new 10 models on offer – 7 coming from Sharp alone – which will begin rolling out by the middle of November through the end of December. They have a dedicated Flash site Here and we’ve posted a few details with images after the jump.

Mobidec 2007 — Even Bigger and Better

The Mobile Contents Forum (MCF) is gearing up for the Mobidec 2007 conference again this year to be held on 27 November at the swanky Meguro Gajoen in Tokyo. Their stated focus topics for the popular annual industry event include; SEM, SEO, advertising, user-generated content, m-commerce and digital tv broadcasting for mobile. We’ve always enjoyed this gathering in years past and look forward to attending again in November!

KDDI Announces New Handset Models

The fall and winter 2007 handset season is officially upon us now with au announcing their new series of models will hit the dori by middle of November. The latest line-up also claims one ‘world first’ with a co-op between Samsung and Hitachi, on the W53H – Wooo, touting a 2.8 inch QVGA organic EL display targeting users hooked on 1Seg digital-tv. More details with pics and links after the jump.

ScanR Announces New Service for Japan

US-based ScanR will provide their new service to KDDI customers via the EZWeb official contents portal as of October 4th 2007, press release [in Japanese] Here. “ScanR” creates PDF files of documents and business cards from user-generated cameraphone images, and stores those files online to deliver via FAX or e-mail. The service, which can also automatically transcode business card information into file data to be compiled onto the address book of your mobile phone, is on display in KDDI’s booth at CEATEC this week.