Eurotechnology.com news & events
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DoCoMo plans to sell BlackBerry to corporates in Japan With the RiM/NTP patent infringement lawsuit settled with a US$612.5 million payment, DoCoMo and Research in Motion (RiM) announced on June 8, 2006 that DoCoMo plans to start selling BlackBerry in Japan from autumn 2006 to corporate customers. Will RiM invest US$ 612.5 million to build…
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On June 8, 2006, DoCoMo and Research in Motion (RiM) announced that DoCoMo will start marketing RiM’s BlackBerry to corporate customers from autumn 2006. DoCoMo will offer a version of BlackBerry which will use wCDMA (FOMA) 3G network connection in Japan, and will also be able to operate on legacy GSM/GPRS networks which are still…
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SoftBank acquires Vodafone’s Japan operations, announces turnaround strategy SoftBank turnaround for Vodafone-Japan: Focus on customer service and increased investments by Gerhard Fasol SoftBank has acquired Vodafone-Japan (Vodafone KK) and will change the name to SoftBank Mobile. SoftBank‘s alliance with APPLE to develop iPod-mobile phones is the latest in a string of actions to take the…
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According the headline report in Nihon Keizai Shinbun (the world’s largest business daily) on Saturday May 13th, Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs and SoftBank’s Chairman Masayoshi Son met recently, and are developing a joint mobile phone with iPod and iTunes functions. On March 17 SoftBank announced the full acquisition of Vodafone’s Japan subsidiary – the former…
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by Gerhard Fasol April 24, 2006 was my Swedish Day: for breakfast I was invited to IKEA’s opening party for their new store in Funabashi (I met even with the global Chairman of IKEA – that he attended the opening in Funabashi shows how seriously IKEA is taking this (second) market entry to Japan) –…
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As a consequence of our CEO’s briefing entitled “Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecommunications and what Europe can do to catch up” on March 23, 2006 for the Technology Attaches of the Embassies of the 25 European Union countries here in Tokyo our company has been awarded a project contract by…
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IKEA enters Japan for the second time, 32 years after the first entry to Japan. Ikea reenters Japan: IKEA created a joint venture in Japan in 1974 and abandoned it in 1986 – this company still flourishes, but IKEA withdrew from Japan… Ikea reenters Japan: Today, Monday April 24, 2006 at 7:30am, IKEA invited about…
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1-SEG? One-Seg? wansegu? In Japan the nickname for digital mobile TV is written in Katakana: ワンセグ (pronounced wansegu). Japanese people love to abbreviate – oneseg is short for One Segment. Why? The reason is technical: digital TV is broadcast in certain radio frequency channels. Each TV station (e.g. NHK, Fuji-TV, TBS etc) uses one particular…
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Digital mobile TV started officially in Japan on April 1, 2006 after several months of testing. Japan’s media industry is large – Japan’s broadcasting industry alone is about US$ 40 billion sales/year, so mobile-TV will probably develop into a multibillion-$ industry over the next few years. At the moment there is a chicken-and-egg situation: content…
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Briefing at the European Union Embassy following Vodafone’s failure in Japan and what Europe can do to catch up? by Gerhard Fasol Today (March 23, 2006) I was invited to brief the Technology Attaches of the Embassies of the 25 European Union countries here in Tokyo about the topic “Why Japan is several years ahead…
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The Deal seals Vodafone’s exit from Japan Softbank acquires Vodafone Japan in an approx. US$ 15 billion deal – worth an estimated US$ 83 billion ten years later SoftBank and Yahoo-Japan acquired 97.7% of outstanding shares of Vodafone Japan (Vodafone KK) in Japan’s largest M&A transaction (the remaining 2.3% are owned by other investors). In…
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Vodafone’s opportunity cost of US$ 83 billion, asset write-down by £28bn (= approx. US$ 50 billion) in 2006, and kicking off SoftBank’s meteoric rise by Gerhard Fasol Vodafone Japan fail: learn from the missed US$ 83 billion opportunity in Japan Vodafone Japan fail: a painful lesson for the Vodafone group, and the jumpstart for SoftBank’s…
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i-Tunes Music Store (ITMS) kick-started internet music downloads in Japan i-Tunes Music Store (ITMS) kick-started internet music downloads in Japan, which were falling just before ITMS arrived: i-Tunes & i-Pod themselves are under attack in Japan i-Tunes & i-Pod themselves are under attack by KDDI‘s “au Listen Mobile Service” – LISMO!, which includes sophisticated viral…
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“Vodafone K.K.’s Tsuda, 津田志郎, seeks growth in Japan, not sale” However, sale to SoftBank may be the way forward About one year ago, in an interview with Bloomberg (“Vodafone KK’s Tsuda seeks growth in Japan, not sale“), I mentioned that a sale of Vodafone’s Japan operations to Softbank might be the way Vodafone will go…
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Got interviewed about mobile FeliCa and other mobile trends in Japan by Germany’s largest broadcasting network ARD: read text of program here listen to the broadcast here (in German) Much of this broadcast is based on our presentation: Japan’s telecom sector Mobile payment Japan, e-money and mobile credit report: Copyright 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK All…
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(unedited original manuscript of an article printed in the Wallstreet Journal). Guest guide Gerhard Fasol takes you to his favorite town in Japan. Your Guide: Gerhard Fasol, Founder and CEO of Eurotechnology Japan KK, a group of hands-on Japan experts, who build and expand the Japan business for US and EU high-tech companies and vice-versa.…
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Was interviewed today about the announced JV between SANYO and Nokia for CDMA2000 phone handsets (I added some corrections here): [Q1] How will SANYO benefit from this, since they are the ones who have the technology, what do they hope to gain from working with Nokia? Or is this merely a way to reduce costs…
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Innovations in Japan’s mobile phone sector Why is Japan’s telecommunications sector leading? Seminar announcement The European Institute of Japanese Studies (EIJS Academy in Tokyo) of the Stockholm School of Economics will hold a seminar in Tokyo-Marunochi on Thursday, February 16, 2006: Topic: “Why are Mobile Phones (Keitai) so hot in Japan? – and How European…
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Music player phone for KDDI LISMO mobile music service LISMO! competing with iPod and iTunes (Tokyo, Feb. 6, 2006 by Eurotechnology Japan KK) In the last few days KDDI/AU‘s “MUSIC-HDD” phone (W41T by Toshiba) went on sale nationwide in Japan. The W41T includes a 4 Gigabyte 0.85 inch (22.6mm) diameter Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and…
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Wednesday January 18, 2006 I was interviewed live on CNBC’s “Worldwide Exchange” news program about the turbulence on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following lower than expected quarterly earning reports by Intel, Yahoo and IBM, and a sell-off of Livedoor shares. Here is a summary of what I said in the interview: Overall I am very…
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Overall Japanese mobile operators generate on the order of US$ 10 Billion/year in profits with a rising tendency. US$ 10 Billion/year profits attract three new entrants to Japan’s mobile markets (eMobile, YAHOO-BB and IP-mobile), mobile virtual operators, and attracted Vodafone to acquire J-Phone some time ago. DoCoMo’s domestic profits in particular have been continuously rising…
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Japan’s 2005 cellphone subscriber data show: Japan’s cellphone market continues to grow by more than 4.5 million subscriptions/year DoCoMo and KDDI are continuing their head-to-head race Since June 2005 Vodafone is consistently gaining customers again (but losing market share) Willcom’s turn-round is continuing, and Willcom is consistently gaining market share. Willcom is outperforming Vodafone as…
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SONY‘s PSP includes wLAN connectivity – this image shows our company homepage displayed on a PSP’ internet browser SONY’s PSP can be used as a VOIP telephone – and has a variety of other disruptive functionalities… more in our J-Games report. At the moment PSP is being outsold by Nintendo’s DS. Copyright·©2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All…
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Very small impact for XBOX in Japan to date XBOX 360 Japan Launch makes a new attempt for breakthrough in Japan by Gerhard Fasol Microsoft launched XBOX 360 in Tokyo today Dec 10, 2005: The original XBOX made only very small impact in Japan’s console market, which is dominated by SONY’s Playstation series and Nintendo’s…
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The Mobile Data Association (MDA) announced in a press release on November 25th, 2005 under the headline “Text messaging soars during October” that SMS sent in the UK during October 2005 “have soared … to a staggering … 93.5 million SMS/day”. Read below to find out that Japan’s numbers are at least three times more…
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Japan’s mobile internet is a growth market with about 0.5 Million new subscriptions/month – Japan’s mobile internet grows by about one Finland per year, and even more in terms of ARPU! This growth today is shared almost 50%/50% between DoCoMo’s i-Mode and KDDI’s EZweb. Vodafone’s subscriber numbers on the other hand have been more or…
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CNBC interview on SANYO (Gerhard Fasol) Wednesday Nov 16, 2005, I was interviewed live on CBNC’s Asia Market Wrap with Christine Tan about SANYO’s plans to sell it’s financial division. Some of my friends asked me what I sad in this program – so here is my transcript from memory. Outline of Gerhard Fasol’s interview…
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QR codes (QR = “quick response”) have a lot more capacity than conventional bar codes: Marketing i-Pod-nano with QR-code: QR-code takes you directly to the mobile Apple store to buy your i-Pod-nano here and now on the road (read a detailed description of the Apple i-Pod QR-code campaign in our QR-Code report): More about:– QR-codes…
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No breakthrough for XBOX in Japan yet XBOX promotion in Tokyo XBox has not yet achieved the breakthrough in Japan’s competitive game markets – and Microsoft is relentlessly working to make XBox a success in Japan. Japan game market report (398 pages, pdf-file): The new “XBox 360 Lounge” in Tokyo/Aoyama Japan game market report (398…
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Docomo acquires music retail know-how and a laboratory for mobile payments at the point-of-sale NTT Docomo acquisitions: 32.34% of Tower Records a major share of Japan’s second largest Credit Card issuer Nikkei reports several NTT Docomo acquisitions: DoCoMo will use a total investment of around YEN 10 Billion (approx US$ 100 million) to acquire 32.24%…