Vodafone
Vodafone

Vodafone

DoCoMo FOMA Tops 2 Million, Calls H.K.

The acceleration of DoCoMo’s fantastically subsidized FOMA handset uptake continues apace, with the company today announcing that subscriptions have just topped 2 million, about 2 months ahead of DoCoMo’s deliberately conservative estimates. (Once bitten, forever shy?) For a benchmark comparison, this places DoCoMo about 2 million handsets ahead of Vodafone K.K.’s 3G subscriber base and about 8 million behind KDDI’s. Still, it’s a nice christening present for the new and beautiful 900i handsets that the company is going to let loose on the network next month. See the DoCoMo press release for more details.

Vodafone Japan's Losses To Widen

Despite a decentish 3Q. It looks as if Vodafone K.K.’s first good subsciber uptake month in a while – last December – has been too little and too late to prevent Japan’s number 3 carrier from posting a wider full-year loss for the year to March 31, 2004. Today, the carrier announced that its 3Q consolidated operating revenues increased from 385 billion yen for the three months to September to 1.28 trillion yen for the quarter to December 30, 2003.

DoCoMo Ducks Friday 13 Deadline?

For some strange reason NTT DoCoMo seems reluctant to sink more cash into loss-making AT&T Wireless – the most grumbled about carrier in the North American market – two years after seeing the value of its $8 billion investment in the “struggling” carrier come to zilch. At least DoCoMo has a footprint in the U.S. market, well one anyway, a demonstration room with a FOMA (Freedom tO Move Away from AT&T?) base station.

Extracting 3G Profit Lessons from Japan

Extracting 3G Profit Lessons from Japan“The single biggest benefit that was discovered in Japan was that you need to be fair in sharing the revenues with the content developer. It is not fair to say to a Disney or a CNN, ‘Give me half your money, and then I will put you on my network.’ DoCoMo approached this with the rough idea they would like to keep 10% and give the content developer 90%,” says Tomi Ahonen, a long-time industry watcher, prolific mobinet author, and ex-Nokia consultant. He points to Japan’s stark contrast with Europe, where operators took a 50/50 or 60/40 approach. “Under these terms, [European operators are] very unlikely to attract a large community of developers.” He also has a pretty good ideas as to what EU and the US must do in 2004 to establish successful 3G services. Log on to hear these comments and much more in this lively interview.

Vodafone Introduces VRM301R Module for Mobile Communications

Vodafone K.K. announced today it developed the VRM301R remote module (manufactured by JRC, Japan Radio Co., Ltd.), which incorporates mobile handset communication components and functions. Vodafone K.K. will market the remote module to industrial and business machine manufacturers after mid-February 2004. By integrating the VRM301R into their products, manufacturers will be able to add communication features like Sky Mail, Long Mail (including e-mail) and voice in addition to other wireless data communication functions. As a result, manufacturers will be able to develop a wide range of low-cost applications that meet their needs, including ones for remote control and remote monitoring.

Vodafone Makes Man-Machine Move.

The former J-Phone lost considerable ground to DoCoMo in particular in man-machine business applications. The idea of being able to pay for stuff from your phone from Japan’s ubiquitous vending machines (24-hour booze, cigarettes and some really exotic stuff too) is old hat here. But, now, here’s a move that could presage a Vodafone move to remote monitoring business. Vodafone K.K. today announced that it would begin selling a remote module (the VRM301R) to industrial and business machine manufacturers.