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DoCoMo and KDDI Pushing the Envelope and Raking in Profits

Just as we thought things are gearing up this month, Japan’s number one and two carriers have really pulled some goodies out of their bag. We’ve already talked about KDDI and flat fees, but this week’s subject is profits for the carriers and a grab bag of gains for subscribers. If ever there was a reason not to keep your eyes fixed on Japan’s wireless communications, we’d like to know. DoCoMo trumped itself recently announcing profits, Felicia Mobile commerce with Sony, and now (finally) some concrete plans to expand i-mode. We have the innards of DoCoMo’s recent press conference up for you in this week’s WWJ video program here.

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

Sony and NTT DoCoMo Form Joint Venture Co. for FeliCa Business

Sony Corporation and NTT DoCoMo, Inc. have agreed to form a Joint Venture Company to develop new services based on mobile phones equipped with Sony’s contactless IC Card technology FeliCa(R). The Joint Venture is targeted for establishment in January 2004. Discussions between Sony and DoCoMo will continue to finalize the details of this company which will be named: FeliCa Networks, Inc.

Japan Telcos Post Strong H1

Japanese telecoms operators are likely to post strong half-year earnings, powered by the steady growth of 3G services and brisk demand for photo and video messaging and ring tone downloading. The new services have helped wireless carriers, including NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Corp. reel in fresh subscribers and maintain healthy per-user revenues, the industry’s main measure of profitability.

China Mobile Phone Users Set to Rise

About 500 million Chinese people, or one out of every three Chinese, will own a mobile phone by the end of 2007, a latest industry research report said. As China’s mobile phone penetration grows to one-third from the current 18 percent, the value of the telecommunication-related market will reach 520 billion yuan (US$62.65 billion) in 2007, said CCID Consulting Co Ltd, a Hong Kong-listed information industry-consulting firm, in its report.

Oki Gets Animated with 3D Digital Avatars

Pick your disguise: I want to be Dr. Jekyll as my mini-me. WWJ was pleasantly surprised last week to find that one of Japan’s usually less-covered semiconductor companies, Oki Electric Industrial, has just come up with 3D digital avatar-producing software called FaceCommunicator-BBE that should allow mobile phone users to appear as a character that mimics (in real time) the user’s facial expressions (anger, doubt, happiness, etc.) during calls. Given Japan’s love of anime (think Pokemon), the software could be a real boon for those obsessed with being really cute – or those, for whatever reason, who don’t want to show their faces during videophone conversations.