Top New Stories
1. NEC mobile falters in the steps of i-mode
2. DoCoMo gets closer to TV production for mobile
3. DoCoMo full frontal against number portability
What's On
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1. NEC mobile falters in the steps of i-mode
Mobile Gazette reports that NEC Mobile is pulling out of Europe, on the heels of Panasonic Mobile who also shut down their mobile operations abroad.
"NEC's varied range of 3G devices failed to compete when the bigger manufacturers came on line. NEC then spent some time with low-end devices such as the NEC E101 before concentrating more on i-mode devices for carriers such as O2. Despite being among the first to market with both 3G and i-mode handsets, NEC's impact on the market had declined to almost nothing."
Mobile Gazette goes on to say that NEC may be back, in a join venture, citing Sony Ericsson and Siemens-BenQ. Unfortunately the latter has just declared itself bankrupt and out of business. So it's a tough call and because of NEC's attachment to i-mode it is struggling in many markets outside Japan where i-mode has failed to take off e.g. Israel, Russia and Australia.
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2. DoCoMo gets closer to TV production for mobile
DoCoMo is reported to be considering taking an equity stake in Nippon TV. Since inking a partnership in February, Nippon TV and DoCoMo have been co-developing services and planning and producing special-purpose entertainment and broadcast content for broadcast TV, which is operating in Japan.
I'm a big fan of broadcast mobile TV, but there's a huge debate over whether it will be successful. At the moment cellular download "mobile TV" has the analysts vote as the successful model but that's only shortlived. The real opportunity is in the combination of broadcast and cellular, as they do different things. Hutchison 3G is also an innovator in broadcast mobile TV, like the Japanese, and there is a good article here in Telecom Web.
Broadcast mobile TV raises the debate of whether carriers should be content providers, and their relationship to TV station owners and other media broadcasters and content owners, and that's a big debate which is heading in different directions in different parts of the world.
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3. DoCoMo full frontal against number portability
In an effort to retain customers as number portability comes into effect in Japan on October 24, DoCoMo and Softbank are offering a combined 35 new handset models to gain market share from KDDI. DoCoMo itself is offering 20 new models - a staggering release.
DoCoMO Chief Executive Officer Masao Nakamura said that the new models will be mostly high-end phones, "focusing on the music function".
DoCoMo had a 56% share of Japan's 96 million mobile phone subscribers, while KDDI has 28.1%. Softbank, which bought Vodafone's Japanese unit in April, has a 16% share, and has suffered a large slide in its share price since that purchase because it has not announced a mobile strategy that satisfies analysts and investors.
DoCoMo is also expanding its HSDPA service outside of Tokyo, allowing downloads at 3.6 megabits per second, 10 times quicker than its existing service. The company has sold 34,000 HSDPA-capable handsets since introducing them a month ago.
All-in-all it is a gargantuan battle in Japan right now - a battle of technology, features, marketing, and an immense amount of money - while rest of the mobile world still debates the feasibility of opportunities which have long ago become reality in Japan. Japan's carriers are suffering from what the Indian Express calls competitive anxiety.
4. MVNO debate as ESPN Mobile closes
When an MVNO with a powerful brand dies there is lots of analysis as to what's going on, with some views very direct - that content isn't king and an MVNO is a figment of a marketing person's flight of fantasy.
I'm not sure if that's correct, as there are successful MVNO's such as TEN in France - in this case not brand-based but service-based - and Virgin Mobile which offers fair value. Or, as Julie Ask said in her blog on Jupiter Research - "the audience for video, music, mobile content (more broadly) and news is bigger than it is for an entertainment-first wireless service provider".
You can read "Are MVNOs like ESPN Mobile DOA?" on PCMag.com, or join the Oxford University Next Generation Mobile Forum and take part in the vigourous debate, and you can see ESPN's own obituary here.
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5. Starhub's impressive i-mode commitment
Giiks.com filed a post on Singaporean i-mode alliance partner Starhub's i-mode store promotions and point-of-sale advertising. including a photo gallery and showing the "I-like. i-mode" promotion. It's impressive, worth a look through the gallery - showing how a commitment to i-mode stands in stark contrast to the half-hearted attempts elsewhere, as in Australia by Telstra who seem to have lost interest.
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| This Weekly Newsletter on the i-mode business ecosystem is bought to you the i-mode Content Forum (iCF) the world's largest and most active i-mode® content trade association. President Pascal Lorne, and VP Asia-Pacific Walter Adamson. See our Aims and Objectives. |
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