Japan’s mobile phone market: 2006 results

Japan finished 2006 with a 71.8% wireless penetration rate, which translates to 91.8 million people. Obviously, with the increase of the penetration rate, the net additions are slowing down with each year – 5.5m in 2005 versus 4.8m in 2006.

In 2006, the wireless market in Japan was dominated by DoCoMo with 51.1m users, trailed by KDDI with 25.4m of combined au and Tu-ka user bases, leaving Vodafone KK (now Softbank Mobile) on the third place with 15.2m customers.
The area, in which KDDI outperformed DoCoMo is ARPU, reaching JPY7,040 compared with DoCoMo’s JPY6,910. Vodafone traditionally finished in third place with JPY5,890.
Handset shipments have actually increased in 2006 hitting 48.7 million units compared with 44.8 million in the previous year, but less than 51 million handsets shipped in 2004.

DoCoMo targets home nursing businesses with 3G video phone

DoCoMo envisions the stable growth of businesses engaged in at-home nursing care due to the aging population in Japan and tries to address the emerging market’s needs by offering such devices as Kantan Video Calling terminal. The device is not supposed to be portable as it sits at home and connects people via video calls only (you can’t make just a simple voice call). For convenient operation, the terminal spots a touch screen and is shipped with remote control. The device is ideal for disabled people to connect with the outside world or for monitoring of family members or patients who need nursing care.

Phone Specs
Dimensions(HxWxD):	191mmX220X120
Weight:	2.7kg
Display:	Touch screen (7inch) WVGA LCD TFT (262K colors)
Camera:	CMOS wide angle lens, 1.3MP
Data cards:	CF FOMA (3G) cards P2403, P2402
Color variations:	White
USB:	USB2.0 (2 ports)
LAN:	RJ-45
VGA:	Analog RGB
Serial:	RS-232C
Make:	Tamura Corp.
Price:	JPY200,000

Nearly 40% of DoCoMo user base use mobile wallet phones

DoCoMo rolled out the first phones with built-in mobile payment chips in July 2004, gradually boosting the user base to present 20 million – a 38% share of DoCoMo’s 52 million wireless subscribers. The various usage scenarios for Osaifu Keitai, a Japanese name for the mobile wallet, have emerged during this period, including train commute ticketing service Mobile Suica, e-money payment systems QUICPay and Edy, mobile credit card iD, coupon service Toruca, different kinds of identification and point cards. During the same period, the number of POS accepting Osaifu Keitai payments has increased to 200,000 locations. And it seems that DoCoMo intends to continue its aggressive foray into financial services by adding new capabilities to the service and signing up new partners.

Sharp holds top handset market share as of 4Q06

Sharp kept the top market share among Japan’s handset vendors in 4Q06, according to IDC Japan. Sharp was followed by Panasonic (11.4%), NEC (10.4%), Sony Ericsson (9.2%), Toshiba (9.1%), and other vendors splitting the remaining 38.7% of the market share. Overall, the handset shipments increased 11.2% from the same period in 2005, reaching 12.95 million in 4Q06.

Source: IT Media

DoCoMo adds chic to Razr line-up by selling Dolce & Gabbana model

Japan is late to the Razr fest. Debuted in 2004, the Razr design is about to start feeling stale around the world. According to some analysts, phones based on the Razr design account for about 30% of Motorola's total handset volume. Razr fatigue, anyone? Apparently, not in Japan yet. The first phones based on Razr design – the M702iS and M702iG – were shipped in Japan in December last year. And DoCoMo just started accepting pre-orders for the M702iS based on Dolce & Gabbana design, asking 75,000 yen (around $642). Five Dolce & Gabbana stores in Tokyo (2), Nagoya, Osaka and Fukuoka will distribute the pre-ordered Dolce & Gabbana handsets starting March 15. In April, DoCoMo also plans to sell the limited amount of Dolce & Gabbana phones online.

Japanese handset vendors' poor IPR portfolio makes them less competitive on international arena

While reading ABI Research's insight by Andy Bae, I came across of a very interesting piece of information that reveals a disturbing paradox about the Japanese handset vendors. They are well known for their technological advancements in handsets (half of a credit for that should go to Japanese operators as well), but yet their R&D programs prove to be ineffective compared to Western companies. For example, Qualcomm and Nokia hold more IPR than all of Japan's 11 vendors. As Andy Bae states, "this is especially the case in the WCDMA standard - 560 patents by Qualcomm, 280 by Nokia versus the combined total of Japanese vendors of 270 cases." Clearly, Japanese vendors must intensify their R&D efforts in order to become competitive on a global scale.

KDDI au grabs 60% of one-seg handset market share

If you stop somebody at the streets of Tokyo who is watching digital broadcasting TV on his mobile handset and ask who is his carrier provider, chances are high the answer will be KDDI au. Having started selling its first one-seg model – the Sanyo W33SA (discontinued) – in December 2005, KDDI au expanded its one-seg portfolio to 12 models, resulting in two million units sold as of February 23, 2007. According to GfK Japan, au group has sold more one-seg compatible handsets than its rivals, grabbing 59.96% of the total market share. The early start and variety of one-seg models predetermined its leading position. In related news, the U.S. based MobiTV announced that it has crossed the two-million subscriber mark. It took some seven years for the company to get off the ground and sign up its first million customers, which it announced last April. Scoring its second million took just 10 months.