Word: docomo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...surprise that Japan, a nation of certifiable mobile-phone freaks, will soon be watching a TV drama about a family of itinerant and compulsive dialers. Likewise it should not be surprising that The Cell-Phone Family Show, when it airs this spring, will be sponsored by NTT DoCoMo. After all, the Japanese wireless communications company embedded cell phones deeply into local culture when it launched its phenomenally successful i-mode mobile Internet service, now used by some 30 million Japanese. I-mode's success turned DoCoMo into a global telecommunications role model, a ringing example of how to hook customers...
...good TV drama requires that the protagonist suffer setbacks. So it is only fitting that DoCoMo's once-soaring fortunes have been flagging of late. The fevered rate at which Japanese were signing up for service is slowing, as is average usage. Muscular competitors, including Vodafone, the largest cell-phone com-pany in the world, have stolen away customers in Japan's $70 billion home market. Meanwhile, efforts to expand internationally, considered crucial to DoCoMo's future growth, have been hamstrung by uncertain consumer demand for advanced third-generation wireless services and the global meltdown in telecommunications stocks...
...most telling example of DoCoMo's woes is its inability so far to build on the success of i-mode?certainly a tough act to follow. When it debuted in 1999, i-mode was the world's first network linking mobile-phone users to the Internet. Japanese consumers loved the simple-to-use service and quickly adopted it for diversions such as online gaming, wireless e-commerce and displaying Hello Kitty on their color screens. Unlike clumsy WAP services offered elsewhere in the world, DoCoMo's proprietary system was a smash, registering 120% growth in new subscribers over the half...
...KEIJI TACHIKAWA spent over 35 years at stodgy Nippon Telegraph & Telephone before his career went wild and wireless. As CEO of NTT DOCOMO, NTT's previously obscure mobile-phone wing, he has overseen the success of i-mode, the mobile Internet service that set nearly 30 million pairs of Japanese thumbs tap-tap-tapping on hand-held keypads. Tachikawa, 62, has set up partnerships with Europeans and recently bought a 16% stake in AT&T Wireless. Both moves should serve DoCoMo well in its bid to promote "3g," the ultra-speedy, new-generation service that seeks to make cell phones...
...Forward Spin: If DoCoMo wants to take on Britain's Vodafone on the global stage it will have to become more aggressive. Analysts say it should take advantage of the economic downturn to snap up troubled mobile operators...