Japan -= Nokia

permanently!

Looks like 1% market share is a not a sustainable business model.  Go figure!

Interestingly, Japanese market also exhibits a really interesting user characteristic:
- people generally do NOT upgrade / replace handset regularly
- why did it take them 15 years to figure this out?!

Onto other Rising-Sun data ...

They key mobile market segments that exist in Japan today, are:
* One Billing,
* SMS (Short Message Service),
* MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service),
* Email,
* IM (Instant Messaging),
* PTT (Push To Talk),
* Content Download/Streaming,
* Mobile Broadcasting,
* Mobile Portal/Community,
* Mobile Advertising,
* LBS (Location Based Services),
* Personal Tool/Storage,
* Mobile Mall and Mobile Auction,
* Mobile Banking and Mobile Trading,
* On Chip Banking, and
* On Chip Credit Service or Payment

Unconfirmed high growth areas:
* SNS - social networking sites
* Mobile coupons
* Mobile shopping
* and, of course, blogging - something they seem to have taken a liking to.

3G:
* penetration has grown to 90% (from 60 in 2006).
* 90% use the mobile web
* 50% phones have GPS
* "killer app" == "myNet" - Content produced by the subscribers themselves and forwarded among friends and family

Popular sites:
* Rakuten and
* Yahoo Mobile
* Mobagetown (5.5 mln users, 3 mln in 1 yr!) and
* Magic i-land (leader in mobile books)

Other trendy data according to, this vendor
- ring tones are passe - ring songs are IN!
- preferred compensation models for advertisers: CPC, CPA, and sponsored listings