Tag: docomo

  • Help – my mobile phone does not work! – Why Japan’s mobile phone sector is so different from Europe’s

    Gerhard Fasol

    Presentation at the Lunch meeting of the Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Japan (FCCJ) on March 16, 2007 at the Westin Hotel, Tokyo.

    https://web.archive.org/web/20090628161018/http://www.fcc.or.jp/lunch160307.html

    From the Announcement:

    In his presentation, Dr. Fasol will explain the essentials of Japan’s mobile phone market, why and how it is so different to Europe’s. He will also talk about some of the reasons why it is so difficult for European companies to succeed and uncover opportunities and the keys to success for European companies in this important market.

    More in our report about Japan’s telecom sector.

    Copyright 2013 Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved

  • Wallstreet Journal "Leadership Question of the Week"

    Wallstreet Journal "Leadership Question of the Week"

    Wallstreet Journal, in the section “Leadership Question of the Week”, on Monday June 12, 2006 on page 31, published an article I wrote about a very extraordinary experience I had several years ago at the German Embassy here in Tokyo, with Dr. Tachikawa – then CEO of NTT-DoCoMo (Dr. Tachikawa has sine then moved on to become the head of Japan’s Space Agency).

    Please find the unedited manuscript here (the actual published version was shortened a bit).

    Leading in Asia:

    What was the best business advice you received and who gave it to you?

    The best business advice I received in Japan was from the former CEO of NTT-DoCoMo, Dr. Tachikawa – he taught me that when two parties do business, both parties have to profit/benefit – not just one party. He also taught me to go straight to the point, not waste time with irrelevant things.

    Here the story in more details:

    I had met Dr. Tachikawa at a reception at the German Embassy – purpose of the reception was to bring together German and Japanese leaders in telecommunications and mobile phones.

    I noticed that Dr. Tachikawa, then CEO of DoCoMo, was standing for quite some time at the window, looking out into the beautiful garden of the Embassy with no one to talk to.

    Why was Dr Tachikawa standing alone with no-one to talk to? My explanation was that the Japanese CEOs at this reception were mainly from DoCoMo’s suppliers, and therefore probably too shy to talk to Dr Tachikawa since Japanese business customs places these suppliers on a lower social ranking than their major customer DoCoMo. On the other hand, the German CEOs who had come from Germany, probably did not know who it was who was standing lonely at the window.

    So I approached Dr Tachikawa and we talked quite a while – all in Japanese.

    His first question after the initial introduction was very surprising – Dr Tachikawa asked me, how our company makes money, where our income comes from.

    Having been CEO of our Tokyo based company for the last 10 years, I am very often asked where our company’s offices are located, how big our office is, how many people we employ and other irrelevant conversational detail., Dr. Tachikawa did not ask any of these irrelevant things – he went straight to the point: how do we make money. In my almost 10 years as CEO in 1000s of conversations, Dr Tachikawa was almost the only manager (Western and Japanese) who went straight to the point not losing time over irrelevant details.

    A few days later I received an email from Dr Tachikawa inviting me to his office at DoCoMo’s headquarters to discuss possibilities of cooperation between NTT-DoCoMo and our very small company Eurotechnology Japan KK which I had founded about 10 years ago here in Tokyo.

    I was amazed by Dr Tachikawa’s kindness. A few days later I spent about one hour in his office at the top floor of Sanno-Tower at DoCoMo’s headquarters, right next to the Prime Minister’s Office.

    I had prepared four proposals and towards the end of our conversation I showed these four proposals to Dr. Tachikawa. He rejected three of them, and decided that DoCoMo was interested in one of my proposal.

    I learn a lot from his way of action – he immediately took three decisions about the one proposal he was interested in:

    1. he said that we must now find a way that both our company profit from this plan
    2. he decided who within DoCoMo would be responsible to carry this project out with our company, and
    3. he decided where the source of the budget for this project should be

    I have been working 20 years with Japan now – and Dr. Tachikawa is certainly the Japanese manager I learnt most from, in the meetings I was lucky enough to have with him.

    Best regards

    Gerhard Fasol PhD
    Eurotechnology Japan KK
    http://fasol.com/

    Copyright·©2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·

  • Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecoms…

    Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecoms…

    Briefing the EU Attaches at the EU Embassy in Tokyo about the reasons behind Vodafone’s departure from Japan

    The deeper reasons and background on why Vodafone failed in Japan

    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 Japan’s telecommunications sector (both fixed net and wireless) in a one hour presentation + discussion. I had offered several alternative topics and the conference of EU Technology Attaches selected the most provocative title I had offered:

    Why Japan is several years ahead of Europe in telecommunications and what Europe can do to catch up

    Vodafone KK’s Chairman and former NTT-DoCoMo Vice-President Tsuda, who had worked 34 years at NTT and DoCoMo (and who resigned from his Vodafone-Japan CEO position a few weeks after being head-hunted), said in a recent interview with Bloomberg that “Japan is way ahead in 3G”. – therefore, although this title is clearly provocative, it’s clearly worthwhile examining this question. With the sale of Vodafone KK to SoftBank last week, the timing of this briefing was particularly interesting. My presentation discussed the following questions:

    • Is Japan ahead of Europe in Telecommunications?
    • Why?
    • What is the impact?
    • Is this important?
    • What Europe can do to catch up

    Read our report on Japan’s telecom sector to understand more

    Copyright 1997-2019 Eurotechnology Japan KK All Rights Reserved

  • Mobile operators invest US$ 15 billion

    Japan’s top three mobile operators DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone announced plans to invest about US$ 15 billion during FY 2005 (April 2005 – March 2006):

    Infrastructure investments (capex) by Japan's mobile phone operators - Vodafone's investments were systematically reduced and are by far the lowest of Japan's three large operators
    Infrastructure investments (capex) by Japan’s mobile phone operators – Vodafone’s investments were systematically reduced and are by far the lowest of Japan’s three large operators

    For recent financial data and analysis of Japan’s telecom and mobile sector: Eurotechnology report on Japan’s telecom industries

    Find details about SoftBank’s acquisition of Vodafone KK (Vodafone’s Japan company) in our SoftBank report

    Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·

  • Japan’s mobile subscriber data for March 2005

    March is the month when new subscriptions peak in Japan. During March 2005 around one million new subscribers signed up for mobile services in Japan, the net gain (new subscriptions minus cancellations) was 930,500. New subscribers were shared as follows between carriers:

    DoCoMo: + 480,200 (+ 51.6%)
    KDDI/AU: + 436,100 (+ 46.9%)
    WILLCOM: + 33,300 (+ 3.6%)
    KDDI/TuKa: – 2,600 (- 0.3%)
    Vodafone: -7,400 (-0.8%) (previous counting method: -58,400)
    Astel: – 9,100 (- 1.0%)

    TOTAL: + 930,500 (100%)

    Vodafone announced a new method to calculate numbers. Without this new way of calculating, Vodafone’s loss would have been: -58,400

    Net growth (loss) of subscribers per month for Japan's mobile operators - Vodafone drops into the red, losing subscribers despite a new way of counting them
    Net growth (loss) of subscribers per month for Japan’s mobile operators – Vodafone drops into the red, losing subscribers despite a new way of counting them

    Net growth (loss) of mobile internet subscribers (i-Mode, EZweb and Vodafone Live!): since Vodafone renamed Jsky to Vodafone Live!, its rapidly losing market share
    Net growth (loss) of mobile internet subscribers (i-Mode, EZweb and Vodafone Live!): since Vodafone renamed Jsky to Vodafone Live!, its rapidly losing market share

    Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·

  • Japan mobile subscriber data for Feb 2005

    Japan’s mobile subscriber numbers for Feb 2005 came out yesterday…

    DoCoMo is ahead again after a soft period on the strength of services and handsets, and KDDI/AU is still going strong driven by the designer series, good tariffs/discounts, music, WIN etc.

    Willcom (the former DDI-Pocket) is strengthening under new management, new name and new campaigns and network upgrades, TuKa is falling back after it’s great “TuKa-S” success… and Vodafone succeeded to stabilize subscriber losses somewhat which is a mild step in the right direction and might be the first indication of Mr Tsuda’s influence…

    Stimulated by the needs of our customers, who need to roll out services across the networks in Japan, we have started market surveys, interviewing mobile phone customers of all kinds on Tokyo’s streets in “focus groups”, as we do when required for our customers to get a feel for the market. I always make a point to take part personally in such consumer research, and often do some myself. In the case of mobile phone habits, the first approach at interviewing just reflects back the messages of the commercials and publicity campaigns. Only in-depth interviewing and discussion then reveals the real thoughts which are normally quite different. We learnt a lot about what average Japanese consumers think about DoCoMo, AU and Vodafone, building up a good picture. But the numbers also tell a clear story:

    Subscriber net growth/loss for Japan's mobile phone and PHS operators
    Subscriber net growth/loss for Japan’s mobile phone and PHS operators

    Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·

  • Financials: DoCoMo, KDDI, Vodafone

    The following figure compares Sales (Financial year ending March 31, 2004), Net profits after taxes(Financial year ending March 31, 2004), and market capitalization (as of February 17, 2005) for DoCoMo, KDDI and Vodafone (in each case consolidated for the global company):

    Sales, net income and market cap for docomo, KDDI and Vodafone
    Sales, net income and market cap for docomo, KDDI and Vodafone for the financial year 2004

    Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·

  • NTT to invest US$ 45 Billion over 6 years

    NTT to invest US$ 45 Billion over 6 years

    NTT investments to defend NTT against challengers KDDI and Softbank

    KDDI and SoftBank challenging NTT’s dominating position in Japan’s telecom sector

    Softbank is rapidly becoming the third universal telco in Japan, targeting NTT’s most important income streams. KDDI of course is also targeting NTT’s fixed line income.

    NTT plans to intensify its defensive battle

    On November 2, 2004, NTT announced plans to compete: NTT will invest 5 Chou YEN (YEN 5000 Billion = US$ 45 Billion) over 6 years (2005-2010), i.e. about US$ 7.5 Billion/year. 60% of this investment will be for optical IP networks. NTT plans to build about 30 million FTTH lines.

    NTT fibre to the home (FTTH) contracts
    NTT fibre to the home (FTTH) contracts

    read more here in our report on Japan’s telecom sector…

    Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·

  • Update on Prepaid Phones in Japan

    Prepaid mobile phones are a huge business in Europe.

    In Japan prepaid mobile phone numbers are tiny, and NTT’s new CEO just announced that NTT-DoCoMo is planning to stop offering prepaid mobile phones altogether.

    Find detailed statistics and market shares per operator for Japan’s prepaid market in our report on Japan’s telecommunications sector.

    Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·

  • Version 8 of the "i-Mode report"

    Completed version 8 of the “i-Mode Report” (260 pages, 45 figures, 120 photographs, and 25 tables)

    Main changes and additions:

    updated most statistics and graphs
    added a section on mobile games on i-mode
    updated the international section
    updated the 3G section
    updated the i-mode-FeliCa wallet-phone section
    corrected many errors
    updated the section on Japan’s telecom landscape: added recent transactions, and updated graphics

    Copyright·©1997-2013 ·Eurotechnology Japan KK·All Rights Reserved·