Japan's Cellphone Edge

Japan's biggest social network mixi opens mobile APIs

2009-10-27T16:39:00.000-07:00

It was reported that mixi launched a mobile application platform with 104 games ready for download. The move follows earlier launch of the similar platform for PCs. Moreover, about 40 application titles on the announced mobile platform are designed to run seamlesly across mobile and PC platforms. I believe more apps should be made with that purpose in sight as the future in the platform-agnostic applications.

- Posted on the go

DoCoMo to commercially rollout LTE in December 2010

2009-10-13T06:17:00.000-07:00

DoCoMo is said to reveal its LTE roadmap at ITU Telecom World 2009 convention. According to DoCoMo's officials the company plans to commercially deploy LTE in December 2010. Below are some important bits of information about DoCoMo's LTE plans:

Initially, LTE will overlap with company's 3G coverage to ensure service persistence
Dual-mode 3G/LTE devices will be offered with voice carried out by 3G networks
Once LTE coverage is sufficient the phone calls will become IP-based
LTE will be first deployed in the 2.1GHz band, followed by spread into the 1.5GHz around 2012 and then adding 800MHz and 1.7GHz to the offering
DoCoMo plans to install 20K LTE base stations by 2014 which should cover 50% of population
First, LTE data cards will go on sale, with LTE mobile phones following in 2011 or later

Source: IT Media Pro Mobile

Stats: 140 million contactless cards in circulation in Japan

2009-10-10T06:15:00.000-07:00

In a confirmation of Japan leading in smart card penetration, it was reported that 140 million contactless electronic payment cards are currently used in Japan. Edy brand accounts for 51.4 million cards, followed by 29.6 million of Suica, 10.9 million of Waon and 8.9 million of Nanaco. In Tokyo, about 80% of people own some kind of contactless payment card. Overall, it is being predicted that one trillion yen in transactions using e-money will be spent in fiscal 2009. By now, most of cell phones in Japan have a built-in e-money card by default.

Source: via Metropolis.co.jp

Study: iPhone apps usage in Japan

2009-10-06T07:19:00.000-07:00

It was reported that Japanese iPhone users mostly use their beloved gadgets for four purposes, with web browsing being the most popular. Web surfing is then followed by Email, iPod and phone calling use cases. Surprisingly, iPhone apps, including games came fifth in this survey of about 300 iPhone users conducted by IMJ Mobile. Nevertheless, 91% of respondents claim to have downloaded an app from iTunes. It's quite obvious that the most popular app category turns out to be games, considering Japanese people's passion for games.

Source: IMJ Mobile

Japan mobile phone market contracts by 19% in 2Q09

2009-10-01T05:11:00.000-07:00

Japanese handset vendors sold 2.3 million less mobile phones in 2Q2009 than in the same quarter last year. With 9.5 million unit sales this quarter became the seventh consecutive quarter with negative growth in Japan. On a brighter side, at least for Sharp, this is the 13th consecutive quarter for the vendor to retain top share. The hard times will likely continue in 2H09 for mobile vendors in Japan, the IDC press release states.

Source: IDC Japan

McKinsey report: Japanese vendors lag behind foreign counterparts in China

2009-09-30T04:07:00.000-07:00

McKinsey's study finds that Japanese companies are lagging behind European and American counterparts in conquring China markets due to their archaic management style and inability to hire and retain best talent. Examples include failure to reward and promote local staff and using Japanese as their official language in China office. As the result, Japanese products are not enough localized to meet Chinese consumers' tastes. As for the Japanese handset vendors, only Sharp was identified as one out of 24 leading foreign players across 12 consumer-oriented markets in China. Overall, Japanese mobile phones take about 3% of market share in China. Besides Sharp, Toyota, Suntory and Shiseido were mentioned in the report. In the white goods market, Japanese companies have just a 6 per cent market share, the report states. I totally agree with McKinsey as it seems the word globalization was lost in translation in Japan.

Source: FT

DoCoMo is in eco-friendly move with wooden phones

2009-09-24T05:38:00.000-07:00

Heading for the ITU Telecom World 2009 event DoCoMo is bringing some phone prototypes dressed up in wooden jackets. Before hearing the steamy "Save trees!" protests, here is a revelation for you from DoCoMo: "The prototypes are made with the surplus wood of trees culled during thinning operations to maintain healthy forests." One of the prototypes is the original Sharp SH04-A in a wooden dress. To make prototypes look nice inside too, DoCoMo put in place a nice graphical UI based on the photographic art of Mikiya Takimoto, a well-known green forest evangelist.

Source: NTT DoCoMo

Nokia expands its Vertu luxury brand lineup in Japan

2009-09-23T06:59:00.000-07:00

It was reported that Nokia is expanding its luxury lineup of Vertu phones offered in Japan via Vertu-operated MVNO by adding a Ferrari-themed Ascent TI model. The Ferrari phone is a limited edition model with just 2009 units to be sold worldwide. It is not clear how many models Nokia is planning to sell in Japan. The asking price is 1,200,000 Japanese yen or about 1,200 US dollars. It will go on sale from October 1st in Vertu's flagship store in Ginza, Tokyo. Nokia retreated from Japan's mobile phone market last year, keeping just R&D and Vertu operations. I expect it to be back in some time, say... when LTE deployment is in full swing in Japan?

Source: IT Mobile Media

iPhone 3GS tops the charts in Japan

2009-09-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

The recent mobile phone sale figures from GfK show the rise of the iPhone 3GS 32Gb model to the top of the charts. Softbank's marketing campaign under the "iPhone for Everyone" slogan is clearly bearing the fruit. Just two weeks ago iPhone was ranked tenth...

TOP 10 (Sep. 7-13)
1(3) iPhone 3GS 32Gb	Softbank
2(2) Sharp SH-06A	NTT DoCoMo
3(1) Sharp SH001	KDDI au
4(6) Sharp SH-02A	NTT DoCoMo
5(4) SE W64S	KDDI au
6(12) iPhone 3GS 16Gb	Softbank
7(5) Panasonic 830P	Softbank
8(8) Sharp URBANO	KDDI au
9(7) Sharp SH-05A	NTT DoCoMo
10(10) iPhone 3G 8GB	Softbank

Previous Japan's top 10 mobile phone rankings:

Top 10: Aug. 31-Sep. 6

Source: IT Media Mobile

Fans rejoice as Armani phone lands in Japan

2009-09-18T20:22:00.000-07:00

The release of Samsung's 830SC by Softbank is going to be good news for Armani fans in Japan. It's a well-known fact that Japan is heaven for luxury brands and, no doubt this phone will find love with some followers. The question is how big is this niche market? It's also interesting to see how Samsung is trying to penetrate Japanese market. Apparently, one of Samsung's strategic moves is to lure Japanese consumers by putting large magic Emporio Armani letters on mid-range phone.

Phone Specs
Model:	Samsung Emporio Armani 830SC
Carrier:	Softbank
Display:	2.2inch QVGA AM-OLED
Packet data:	HSDPA 3.6Mbps
Bluetooth:	Yes
Browser:	Full HTML
Camera:	3MP
Bands:	WCDMA/GPS 900/1800/1900
Dimensions:	47.4 x 114.9 x 12mm
Weight:	91g
Memory card slot:	microSDHC (up to 8gb)
Colors:	black, white

Source: Softbank

Sharp NetWalker walks into stores

2009-09-17T05:55:00.000-07:00

It was reported that Sharp's miniature version of netbook or, as some call it a smartbook, went on sale in selected shops in Japan. The price tag is 44,800 Japanese yen or roughly just a little bit shy of $450 US dollars. Users are required to buy a USB modem to connect it to the Internet while on the go. eMobile is happy to subsidize the device by 40,000 yen if you agree to sign up for a 2-year data contract. It's nice, but no thank you. Why should I pay for the third Internet connection? I have broadband at home and I pay for data plan on my smartphone. Now they are pitching this beauty to get more money from me. Obviously, somebody doesn't get the pains of their customers. I'd consider paying some premium additionally to my smartphone data plan if they allowed me to tether it to my laptop. That will make me a happy camper.

Sharp NetWalker Spec
Model:	Sharp NetWalker PC-Z1
Carrier:	eMobile
CPU:	Freescale i.MX515
Memory:	515MB
Display:	5inch WSVGA Touch TFT LCD
Display res:	1,024X600, 65K colors
Input:	68-key board, touch panel
Internal memory:	4GB (2GB user allocated)
WLAN:	802.11b/g
memory card slot:	microSD/SDHC
USB:	USB2.0
Battery life:	10hours
Dimensions:	161.4 x 108.7 x 24.8
Weight:	409g
OS / Platform:	Linux Ubuntu 9.04 (ARM ver., Sharp modified)
Browser:	Mozilla Firefox
Email:	Mozilla Thunderbird
Organizer:	Mozilla Sunbird
Office docs:	OpenOffice.org 3.0
Graphics:	OpenOffice.org 3.0 Drawing
Media player:	Totem
Text editor:	gedit
Viewer:	Document Viewer
Price tag:	JPY44,800

Source: Sharp

Brand alphabet soup: au to release iida ply

2009-09-16T04:29:00.000-07:00

A new design effort is coming this week from KDDI au in the form of PLY, another lifestyle product under the iida brand. The PLY will hit the shelves in au stores on the 17th of September. The designer phone takes on the multi-layer concept, with each layer having a different color. Here is what au had to describe it:

PLY means “lamination layers”—layers of time, culture, technology and design. Everything that encompasses us continually accretes layer upon layer until it finally produces something of new value. To the accumulated layers of design and generational layers of mobile phones, what will be added next? What kind of future will be built upon that accumulation of mobile phone design? The question itself will form the answer, thus producing a shape of the future. This is the entry point of PLY, the new mobile product from iida.

Phone Specs
Model:	PLY
Carrier:	KDDI au
Dimensions:	53 x 102 x 14.5mm
Weight:	127g
Form factor:	Slider
Camera:	3MP
Screen:	3 inch 26oK TFT LCD

Source: au

With 15 million users and 600 million PVs per day Mobage Town is sailing North

2009-09-15T07:35:00.000-07:00

Kudos to the folks at Dena who run a successful social network Mobage Town. They've just reached a significant milestone by signing up fifteen million users. They started in 2006 by offering a standard set of social features for mobile phone users and later added a special focus on social gaming experience, which eventually proved to work...According to Dena, fifteen million users generate about 600 million page views in one day, with Mobage Town core users (40%) being in their twenties.

Mobage Town Milestones
05/2007	5 million users
04/2008	10 million users
07/2009	15 million users

Source: Dena

Bar code scanner Windows smartphone from Fujitsu

2009-09-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

This niche but powerfull smartphone manufactured by Fujitsu for DoCoMo impressed me after looking under its hood. Oh boy, it's got some power. Of course, it is compatible with any kind of bar code standard you can imagine. Too bad it is limited to some vertical industry use scenarios like transportation or logistics. It should be available in 1Q2010.

Phone Specs
Platform / OS:	Windows Mobile 6.5 Pro
WCDMA:	FOMA 7.2Mbps
WLAN:	802.11 b/g
Bluetooth:	Yes
GPS:	Yes
Water resistant:	IPX5/IPX7
Shock resistant:	IP5X
Touch screen:	2.8inch WQVGA TFT 65K
Memorty:	MicroSD(2GB)/SDHC(8GB)
Camera:	2.0MP
Weight:	180g
Dimensions:	154mm X 51mm X 20mm

Source: NTT DoCoMo

NEC, Casio and Hitachi in joint mobile phone development

2009-09-13T06:39:00.001-07:00

Consolidation of Japan's mobile phone sector continues as three domestic handset manufacturers NEC, Casio and Hitachi have decided to jointly produce mobile phones. According to Nikkei, the newly created venture will start its operations from the beginning of next financial year in April 2010. NEC would take over the leadership with the 70.4% stake in the venture, which will be named NEC Casio Mobile Communications. In 2004 Casio and Hitachi have already merged their production units together to sustain in a highly competitive market. Other examples of market consolidation include the Kyocera and Sanyo marriage and exit of Mitsubishi in prior years. I expect the squeeze to continue and more consolidation to happen in the coming years.

Stakeholders of new venture
NEC	70.4%
Casio	20%
Hitachi	9.6%

Source: Nikkei

Top 10: Best selling mobile phone in Japan

2009-09-12T18:32:00.000-07:00

The first week of September witnessed a big jump of iPhone 3GS from the 10th to third ranking in top 10 selling mobile phone rankings in Japan. The big jump is attributed to solving the earlier inventory problems for iPhone 3GS. Nevertheless, the undisputed leader Sharp saw two of its models swapping the top and second positions, securing its hold on Japanese market.

TOP 10
1(2) Sharp SH001	KDDI au
2(1) Sharp SH-06A	NTT DoCoMo
3(10) iPhone 3GS	Softbank
4(6) SE W64S	KDDI au
5(5) Panasonic 810P	Softbank
6(13) Sharp SH-02A	NTT DoCoMo
7(3) Sharp SH-05A	NTT DoCoMo
8(18) Sharp URBANO	KDDI au
9(7) NEC N-08A	NTT DoCoMo
10(4) iPhone 3G 8GB	Softbank

Source: IT Media Mobile

Push-to-Talk failure in Japan

2009-05-08T03:30:00.000-07:00

Mesmerized by the US Nextel's success with its PTT service running on Nextel's proprietary iDen network in early 2000's, Japanese carriers including DoCoMo and KDDI au also introduced similar services utilizing existing cellular networks in Japan in 2005. However, the concept never really took off in Japan. According to DoCoMo, about one hundred thousand users use the service on a monthly basis. As the result, both carriers announced the pending retirement of PTT services with KDDI au shutting down its in August this year, followed by DoCoMo with the plans to close the service in September next year.

Source: IT Media

NHK joins iPhone app craze

2009-05-01T14:24:00.000-07:00

NHK, the Japanese analogue of British BBC, joined the ranks of iPhone application developers by releasing the replica of its iconic clock. The clock application doesn't only keep the authentic looks but it also provides the time tone similar to the original sampling. It's available free for download from the iPhone appstore.

Source: CNet Japan

iPhone sales in Japan estimated to hit 1 million in three months

2009-04-30T23:27:00.000-07:00

While Apple doesn't release iPhone sales by region, there are some indicators that iPhone is doing pretty well in Japan as Softbank's agressive sales tactics and viral marketing are starting to bring new customers to Softbank shops. According to Business Media, which refers to some internal sources at Softbank, the iPhone sales should easily achieve one million devices after one year from iPhone's landing in Japan. Given that the iPhone went on sale in Japan nine months ago, the one million milestone should be reached in the mid of summer.

Source: Business Media

Blackberry Bold makes it into the Top 10 of weekly sales at DoCoMo

2009-04-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

I was quite surprised when I looked through the DoCoMo's top weekly handset sales published by Keitai Watch via ITC Network. I saw something I don't recall seeing for a long time - a foreign model making it to the top ten. Living up to its name the maverick was Blackberry Bold, which went on sale in February this year. It is already May but as you can see it is still kicking.

Advanced Media launches voice-to-text Email app for iPhone

2009-04-30T05:48:00.000-07:00

Tokyo-based Advanced Media has released beta voice-to-text Email application for iPhone. Since the application is in beta, it is distributed free via iPhone store. Advanced Media intend to charge for the app once Apple releases iPhone OS 3.0. The app on iPhone is just a nice interface to establish a connection to the server where all the heavy-lifting is done. Advanced Media has developed an in-house speech recognition engine Amivoice, which learns end-user's speech patterns and allows to record geographic and personal names in advance. It is one of the fewest apps out there to cater to users with a need for voice-to-text emailing in Japanese. Good news is that Advanced Media plans similar app for Android and Windows Mobile platforms.

Source: Advanced Media press release

KDDI au signs up one million fitness fans

2009-04-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

In penetrated markets you need to dig deeper past the usual gender and age demographics to uncover untapped user segments. The proven method is to utilize a lifestyle marketing catering to different user needs. The first thing that would come into mind is probably sport and fitness lifestyle. And KDDI au recent endevour with au Smart Sports service shows that it works - the carrier has just announced one millionth subscriber. The au Smart Sports service offers two options Run & Walk and Karada Manager (Body Manager). With Run & Walk compatible phones you can set various modes like running or cycling mode and track and upload the data onto the web. Karada Manager offers means to set your personal health goals and provides advices on achieving them. KDDI au also partnerd with Adidas to provide branded phone pouches for au Sport Smarts users.

Source: KDDI au press release

Nico Nico Douga finally launches iPhone app

2009-04-28T04:49:00.000-07:00

Given the fact that Nico Nico Douga is considered to be Japanese YouTube, it took awfully long time for them to release iPhone application. What is interesting is that iPhone is not even the first device to be optimized for Nico Nico Douga Mobile experience. Users of various models from DoCoMo, au and Softbank had the opportunity to watch videos and leave comments for some time. Actually, the mobile service accounts for about 3.2 million users. Now, when it is iPhone's turn to foray into Japan video sharing marketplace via Nico Nico Douga Mobile, users have a broad set of functions embedded into iPhone app, including the ability to leave comments, search, rank and tag videos. And yeah, it's free. Just type Dwango in iPhone App Store search to find it.

Source: Niwango press release (pdf) via Keitai Watch

Toyota, KDDI link phones with car navigation systems

2009-04-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

Driving Toyota has just become funnier as the company partnered with KDDI au and Navi Time to provide EZ Navi Link service bridging mobile phones with car navigation systems. With EZ Navi Link service, au users can search for driving destinations on their mobile phone and then push the search results to car navigation via Bluetooth connection, which should improve the user experience with Toyota cars and au phones and save time by not typing in destination address. The service is free but users will access mobile web search services that will contribute to au's data revenue stream.

Source: KDDI au via Keitai Watch

Twisting Mickey's ears will get you some music

2009-04-27T04:13:00.000-07:00

Aimed at Mickey Mouse-loving crowd the iRiver Mplayer+ hit store shelves in Japan. Featuring 2gb of memory and shaped as mickey's head with music controls in its ears, the miniature mp3 player sells for about $60. What caught my attention is a promo image showing the mplayer+ attached to a cell phone strap (see below). Taking into account that nowadays phones are capable of mp3 playback it seems strange that you will carry another player along with your phone. Or maybe iRiver has uncovered a niche of music phone-shy users?