Word: docomo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...market. Some 67.5 million?more than of Japan's population?already subscribe to mobile-phone services, and analysts say the market is approaching saturation. Net growth in subscriptions fell 31.7% in December compared with the same month in 2000, after falling 26% in November, according to Merrill Lynch. While DoCoMo holds a 59% market share, competition for new and existing users is fierce. KDDI's au and Tu-ka services, with 17.7% and 5.7% of the market respectively, offer popular student-discount plans and a phone with a global positioning satellite function. J-Phone, owned by Britain's Vodafone...
...mode is no longer a hot new product?and DoCoMo no longer sparkles as one of the few diamonds in Japan's rough economy. The company is proving susceptible to shrinking growth rates, a syndrome that already afflicts carriers in many markets worldwide. I-mode subscription growth is expected to ease to 46% annually for the fiscal year ending this March, down by one-third from last May. Japanese are not signing up for cell-phone services of any kind as quickly as they were, and those who already subscribe are spending less per month. The slowdown has contributed...
...entire industry is watching, what do you do for an encore? DoCoMo's president and head cheerleader Keiji Tachikawa hoped to maintain momentum by moving quickly into high-speed mobile data transmission, so-called 3G networks. The company became the first in the world to offer full-fledged commercial 3G service last fall when it unveiled its FOMA (Freedom of Mobile Multimedia Access) system, a network so advanced it allows phones to download data-intensive graphics, MP3 music files and even to transmit video. But consumer acceptance has failed to match launch-day hype. Third-generation handsets cost three...
...Takaharu Sue, a 30-year-old office manager in Tokyo, owns the latest 2G phone from DoCoMo and has no plans to upgrade. "At this point," he asks, "what's the point?" Only 42,000 FOMA handsets have been sold?far fewer than the 150,000 the company had modestly projected to move by March. While the company is publicly sticking to its forecasts, Tachikawa recently admitted that 3G uptake "is lower than we expected...
...protect its lead, DoCoMo has been forced to spend more in sales commissions and handset subsidies, narrowing profit margins. Compounding the com-pany's problems is a disturbing dip in the all-important average revenue per user, called the ARPU in industry lingo. Thanks in part to i-mode, Japan's cell-phone users spend more on wireless services than their counterparts elsewhere in the world?about $63 per month compared with $53 in the U.S., for example. But recession-weary Japanese are cutting back on spending by going without or substituting cheaper wireless e-mail for expensive voice calls...