WIRE REPORTS

domain-B Tata Teleservices may file a review petition against licenses cancellation domain-B Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTL), in which Japan's NTT DoCoMo owns a 26-per cent stake, may file a review petition in the Supreme Court against the court's order to cancel three of the company's telecom licenses. On Thursday, 2 Februaury, Supreme Court ... and more » KDDI gains net 376200 mobile-phone users in Jan. MarketWatch Japan's No. 2 mobile phone carrier after NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it had about xxxxx million users at the end of MONTH. The number of subscribers to the company's third-generation cellular phone service rose/fell a net XXX to about XXX million. and more » KDDI Gains Net 376200 Mobile Phone Users In Jan Wall Street Journal Japan's No. 2 mobile phone carrier after NTT DoCoMo Inc. said it had about xxxxx million users at the end of MONTH. The number of subscribers to the company's third-generation cellular phone service rose/fell a net XXX to about XXX million. and more » Tatas to file review petition on SC order on 2G Moneylife Personal Finance site and magazine At the time when NTT DoCoMo invested in TTL, TTL had been in operations for over 12 years, already had 17 licences, had reached an annual turnover of Rs6,000 crore, had 3000 employees, about 100 offices, 33 million subscribers, 60000 km of fibre, ... and more » MyFox Houston Japan Stocks Weaken, Australia Shares Choppy Ahead of Rate Decision MyFox Houston Among others in the sector, NTT DoCoMo Inc. fell 0.2 percent, Softbank Corp. lost 0.9 percent and KDDI Corp. traded down 0.3 percent. Shares of Suzuki Motor Corp. lost 1.4 percent after posting a profit slide of just under five percent during the ... and more » Japan Stocks Weaken, Australia Shares Choppy Ahead of Rate Decision myfoxny.com Among others in the sector, NTT DoCoMo Inc. fell 0.2 percent, Softbank Corp. lost 0.9 percent and KDDI Corp. traded down 0.3 percent. Shares of Suzuki Motor Corp. lost 1.4 percent after posting a profit slide of just under five percent during the ... and more » NTT's nine month profits fall 22% Telecompaper (subscription) The company's mobile unit, NTT Docomo, ended the period with 59.62 million subscribers, after gaining 631000 new customers in the three-month period. Of the total, 57.96 million are Foma users and 1.14 are Xi (LTE) users. and more » IBNLive.com Tata Teleservices to seek review of 2G decision IBNLive.com At the time when Japan's NTT Docomo invested in TTL, the company had been in operations for over 12 years, had 17 licences and an annual turnover of Rs 6000 crore and had 3000 employees. "The investment made by its partner NTT Docomo was, therefore, ... and more » Business Standard Tatas to file review petition, takes different argument Business Standard TTSL said here that at a time when NTT Docomo invested in TTL, the Tata company had been in operations for over 12 years. It already had 17 licences, had reached an annual turnover of Rs 6000 crore, had 3000 employees, about 100 offices, ... and more » Hindu Business Line 2G ruling: Tata Tele to file review petition Hindu Business Line ?At the time when NTT Docomo invested in Tata Teleservices, it had been in operations for over 12 years, already had 17 licences, had reached an annual turnover of Rs 6000 crore, had 3000 employees, about 100 offices, 33 million subscribers, ... and more »

DAILY REPORTS

Feb 1 Disney Mobile on DoCoMo brand launches with two new Android phones in Japan It appears Disney's mobile efforts in Japan are going pretty well, and with the help of carrier NTT DoCoMo they're expanding under the joint "Disney Mobile on DoCoMo" brand name. The partnership is kicking off with two new Android-powered handsets launching over the next couple of months that pack in access to exclusive content from Disney like full-length animations, games, wallpapers and more. First up is the F-08D (left), a "luxury smartphone" that features silhouettes of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, a 4.3-inch HD (720x1280) LCD display, dual cameras and 1.2Ghz dual-core OMAP4430 CPU available in pink or white next month with preorders opening up February 17th. (engadget.com) Jan 27 Glitches to cost DoCoMo execs NTT DoCoMo Inc. President Ryuji Yamada and five other executives will face a pay cut over a series of communications service disruptions since last year, the company said Friday, while announcing a ¥164 billion system improvement plan. Yamada was expected to unveil to reporters the company's plan to beef up its data transmission facilities by spending several billion yen, the carrier said. The disruptions were caused by DoCoMo's failure to cope with increased data traffic following the rapid spread of data-hungry smartphones. (Japan Times) Jan 26 Smartphone traffic projection caught DoCoMo off guard NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Thursday that the disruption of texting and mobile phone services the previous day happened because its packet-switching equipment doesn't have enough capacity to handle the data traffic generated by smartphones. The telecoms giant admitted to miscalculating the surge in data traffic that could be expected from smartphone users. "Our estimate (of the communication volume) was insufficient . . . We apologize to our subscribers for causing the trouble," DoCoMo Executive Vice President Fumio Iwasaki told a news conference. (Japan Times) Dec 21 DoCoMo cable cut leaves 100,000 smartphone users in email limbo NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Wednesday that a problem with an Internet service called sp mode for smartphones may have hampered email delivery for as many as 100,000 customers since Tuesday. The company partially suspended the service after customers, mostly in western Japan, complained Tuesday that replying to email messages caused the return addresses to be changed. The service will resume gradually starting Thursday, the company said. DoCoMo said the trouble occurred when a worker accidentally severed a cable that was part of a relay system in western Japan. (Japan Times) Dec 12 Former Sumiyoshi-kai member arrested for extortion, commented on Juzo Itami beating Tokyo Metropolitan Police on Friday arrested Soichi Konoike, 56, a former member of the Sumiyoshi-kai organized crime group, for attempted extortion of mobile communications company NTT DoCoMo, reports Sankei Shimbun (Dec. 9). According to the Osaki Police Station, Konoike arrived at the NTT Group offices in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward at the end of September and met with company employees of NTT DoCoMo for two hours. During that time, the suspect suggested that in exchange for not disclosing sensitive information about the firm a cash payment would be required. The former gangster did not provide details on the contents of the information. The NTT Group then consulted with police authorities. (Tokyo Reporter) Nov 30 Apple bringing LTE iPhone and iPad to Japan in 2012, says Nikkei We're still a ways from the next iPhone and iPad launches, but Nikkei is reporting that Apple is ready to bring LTE to its mobile devices next year. The publication claims Tim Cook met with executives at Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo and agreed to launch the next iPad and iPhone on its LTE network, with the iPad launching in the summer and the iPhone following in the fall. This timeframe makes sense for the next iPhone, about a year after the iPhone 4S launch, but a summer iPad launch would break from the spring release we've seen for the last two years. However, the iPad has launched first in the US and later internationally in the past, so a spring release stateside isn't out of the question. (theverge.com) Nov 22 Has the iPhone 4S finally gained traction in Japan? The iPhone had a very lukewarm reception when it was initially brought over to Japan, and failed to gather much popularity. Unlike it's contemporaries it didn't have the multimedia focus, video camera or tv-tuner they were accustomed to with their own brands. The iPhone 4S has changed that trend completely, with record amounts of sales propelling the smartphone to the height of fashion and popularity. Even though there were a few hitches with the launch, the iPhone 4S has been a huge success for the two major networks that support it - Softbank, and KDDI - making them serious competitors for market leader NTT Docomo. (ZDNet) Nov 21 DoCoMo to spend on networks NTT DoCoMo Inc., the nation's biggest mobile-phone carrier by subscribers, aims to keep boosting operating profit by curbing overall spending as two smaller rivals add more customers by offering Apple Inc.'s iPhone. The company plans to maintain annual spending at about ¥700 billion in the four years starting next fiscal year, Chief Financial Officer Kazuto Tsubouchi said in an interview Friday. More of that will be spent building faster networks to compete with KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp., he said. (Japan Times) Nov 4 Translation service for DoCoMo cells NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Friday it will offer automatic conversation translation services - between Japanese and English as well as Korean - on mobile phones on a trial basis from Wednesday. Users of the system will be able to receive translations both in artificial voice and text several seconds following the server process, it said. Translation accuracy will be about 90 percent in Japanese and 80 percent in English, it said. (Japan Times) Nov 3 Smartphone sales cheer cell phone firms Buoyed by upbeat sales of smartphones, major mobile phone companies are expected to perform strongly in the second half of this fiscal year--but the eye-popping success of these products could also require some substantial expenditure down the road. Since KDDI Corp. began selling Apple Inc.'s iPhones, a price war has been intensifying between the company and SoftBank Mobile Corp., which had been the popular handset's exclusive distributor in Japan. NTT Docomo Inc., which reported earnings results for the first half of fiscal 2011 on Wednesday, saw its group operating profit fall because revisions to compensation services for handset malfunctions and other emergencies had raised its profit by about 55 billion yen last fiscal year. However, the nation's largest mobile phone service operator reported an increase in income from communications charges. (Yomiuri) Oct 24 KDDI quarterly profit rises on smartphone sales KDDI Corp. said Monday that its net profit for the three months through September gained 4.8% from a year earlier due to the benefits of cost cutbacks and an increase in revenue from sales of mobile phone handsets. Japan's second-biggest mobile carrier after NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437.TO) said its net profit for the fiscal second quarter rose to Y68.19 billion from Y65.05 billion from the same period a year earlier. Operating profit for the July to September quarter rose 6.8% to Y126.65 billion from Y118.56 billion, while revenue increased 3.0% to Y878.32 billion from Y852.42 billion. (MarketWatch) Oct 19 DoCoMo unveils 24 new mobile devices NTT DoCoMo on Tuesday unveiled its 2011 winter - 2012 spring product lineup of 24 models for launch in or after November, including 14 smartphones, the largest and most diverse collection ever released by DoCoMo. The new smartphone lineup meets a broad range of needs for users in Japan, including smartphones for DoCoMo's extra-high-speed next-generation LTE service, Xi, for mobile data communication at up to 75 Mbps; and smartphones equipped for mobile-wallet (Osaifu-Keitai), infrared-based data exchange, one-seg mobile TV and tethering. Enhanced features for the smartphones include dual-core CPUs, large HD-quality liquid crystal screens and high-spec cameras. (Japan Today) Oct 14 Eight-block line forms outside Apple store in Tokyo for iPhone 4S Hundreds of Apple fans in Tokyo waited in a line that stretched eight blocks - that's eight blocks - outside Apple's Ginza store on Friday morning local time, eager to get their hands on the refreshed smartphone, which now sports a faster processor, better camera and the acclaimed Siri voice-activated personal assistant app. According to a Reuters report, many in the line were purchasing Apple's new device as a tribute to Steve Jobs, the comapny's co-founder who died last week after a long illness. The introduction of the iPhone 4S marks the end of exclusivity in Japan for mobile carrier Softbank. KDDI's 'au' mobile arm is now also selling the popular smartphone too, while the country's biggest mobile operator, NTT Docomo, still has no deal with Apple to sell the device. (Digital Trends) Oct 5 KDDI to sell new iPhone - Apple Japan's second-largest mobile carrier KDDI will sell Apple's new iPhone, the California-based company said, ending rival operator Softbank's highly profitable reign as the sole provider in Japan. Shares of Softbank fell 2.3 percent in morning trade, while KDDI fell 0.5 percent and market leader NTT Docomo slid 1.4 percent. That compared with a 0.8 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei average . The market response may have been muted by the fact that the reception for the iPhone 4S, unveiled on Tuesday in California, was lukewarm compared with the rapturous welcome sparked by previous models. (Reuters) Sep 23 DoCoMo makes smartphone that can measure radiation Japan's largest mobile phone carrier, NTT DoCoMo, says it has developed a smartphone capable of measuring radiation levels. A smartphone that can measure radiation levels will be showcased at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technology (CEATEC) in Japan next month. The development of the phone comes in the wake of the disaster at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima back in March. The plant suffered meltdowns inside several of its reactors and continues to release radiation into the environment, though it is gradually being brought under control. (Digital Trends) Sep 20 Docomo smartphone app translates menus NTT Docomo Inc. has released a free smartphone application that translates English, Chinese and Korean restaurant menus into Japanese in a split second. The software will be available free of charge until Jan. 16. The company will collect user feedback to help improve the technology for future commercial use. Users train the smartphone's camera on a restaurant menu, and the text is automatically translated in about 0.2 seconds. The translated text appears on the smartphone screen. (Yomiuri) Sep 10 DoCoMo unveils tablet computers NTT DoCoMo Inc. has taken the wraps off two tablet computers that will be compatible with Xi, its high-speed data communications service. The gadgets should hit the market next month. The Galaxy Tab boasts a 10.1-inch display and a thickness of just 8.6 mm, while the waterproof Arrows Tab can be used in the bathtub. DoCoMo said Thursday it hopes to sell a combined 200,000 of the two models in the business year through next March, by which time it plans to market four new smartphones compatible with the data service. (Japan Times) Jul 25 Plans in place for analog's radiowaves The digitalization of TV broadcasting across the nation Sunday, except in three disaster-hit Tohoku prefectures, promotes more effective uses for airwaves previously occupied by analog broadcasting. Transmitting information digitally uses two-thirds the bandwidth of analog as a result of higher compression rates. The freed-up bandwidth will be used for multimedia broadcasting to portable terminals, which is set to commence in April 2012. Within the new multimedia service, a joint company established by NTT Docomo Inc., private key TV stations and other companies will provide paid programs such as movies, live sporting events and news programs to portable terminals and personal computers. (Yomiuri) Jul 8 NTT DoCoMo plans green-energy cellphone masts Japan's largest mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo, plans to start powering its cellphone tower network with renewable energy such as solar, wind or biomass, the company said Friday. The move could one day allow the company to feed excess electricity back into the grid, and would also act as a safeguard during power grid outages caused by natural disasters such as the March 11 quake and tsunami. NTT DoCoMo, which has 90,000 cellphone relay stations, will start the project by building some 10 renewable energy facilities in fiscal year 2012 to supplement the conventional electricity supply, media reports said. (AFP) Jul 3 Major firms start weekend shifts Major companies on Saturday began operating on weekends to reduce demand for electricity use on weekdays in the face of possible power shortfalls this summer. The start came a day after the government imposed restrictions on electricity consumption by large-lot users in eastern and northeastern Japan. Eight automakers, including Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co., operated factories, while firms such as NTT DoCoMo Inc. opened some of their offices. (Japan Times) Jun 6 DoCoMo has Tokyo service glitch NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Monday its mobile phone network suffered a glitch that hampered the voice and email communications of more than 1 million subscribers in Tokyo and nine nearby prefectures. DoCoMo had received just over 1,300 complaints or inquiries as of noon Monday about the trouble, which started at around 8:30 a.m. The mobile carrier said customers faced difficulty making voice calls or emailing on their first tries. (Japan Times) [ More... ]