getti
29th September 2005, 10:03 PM
NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese mobile phone titan, is contemplating buying a European operator and views the British market as the ideal testing ground for the entire continent.
The Japanese groups plans, being mulled over as one option for expansion, come as its most successful product, i-mode, is being launched in the UK on the O2 network, the former mobile arm of BT and a company worth about a quarter of DoCoMos market value.
This week subscribers to the O2 network will become the first in Britain to sample i-mode, the web-browsing system that converted Japan almost overnight into a nation of obsessive mobile internet surfers and created the backbone of the most advanced cellphone market in the world.
DoCoMo dominates its home market with nearly 50 million users it controls 56 per cent of the market and leaves its rivals, KDDI and Vodafone, well behind.
The company continues to innovate furiously, has persuaded users to browse an average of 45 websites per day on their phones and believes that it can repeat that conversion to the mobile internet elsewhere in the world.
The UK launch of i-mode marks the thirteenth time that the technology, via licensing deals, has found its way on to a network outside Japan. But as its inventor, DoCoMo has grown increasingly frustrated with the revenue limitations of mere partnerships.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Takeshi Natsuno, the head of multimedia and the originator of i-mode, said that DoCoMo faced a decision of whether to invest further in expanding its Japanese operations or to pursue an aggressive overseas strategy.
The Japanese group has an acquisition war chest of more than £4 billion in cash and Mr Natsuno added that, among its many strategies for growing beyond its domestic market, DoCoMo was contemplating the outright purchase of at least one operator in the European Union, possibly in the UK.
At this point we want to become more powerful by technology partnership but the next big challenge for our company is to expand our business abroad and we are always looking for opportunities, he said.
When we make these technology partnerships, like the one with O2, we take no equity in our i-mode partners. Its risk-free expansion but we cannot monetise the relationship. We have plenty of cash, so buying a European operator is an option.
Mr Natsuno went on to explain that the UK market is uniquely attractive because it acts as the test market for the whole of Europe. There are two reasons why it is so advanced, he believes: the first is the high level of deregulation and the second is what he refers to as multicultural sampling.
Britain is a more mixed society than Japan, and the way different communities of users behave and use their phones in the UK teaches important lessons, he said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
The Japanese groups plans, being mulled over as one option for expansion, come as its most successful product, i-mode, is being launched in the UK on the O2 network, the former mobile arm of BT and a company worth about a quarter of DoCoMos market value.
This week subscribers to the O2 network will become the first in Britain to sample i-mode, the web-browsing system that converted Japan almost overnight into a nation of obsessive mobile internet surfers and created the backbone of the most advanced cellphone market in the world.
DoCoMo dominates its home market with nearly 50 million users it controls 56 per cent of the market and leaves its rivals, KDDI and Vodafone, well behind.
The company continues to innovate furiously, has persuaded users to browse an average of 45 websites per day on their phones and believes that it can repeat that conversion to the mobile internet elsewhere in the world.
The UK launch of i-mode marks the thirteenth time that the technology, via licensing deals, has found its way on to a network outside Japan. But as its inventor, DoCoMo has grown increasingly frustrated with the revenue limitations of mere partnerships.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Takeshi Natsuno, the head of multimedia and the originator of i-mode, said that DoCoMo faced a decision of whether to invest further in expanding its Japanese operations or to pursue an aggressive overseas strategy.
The Japanese group has an acquisition war chest of more than £4 billion in cash and Mr Natsuno added that, among its many strategies for growing beyond its domestic market, DoCoMo was contemplating the outright purchase of at least one operator in the European Union, possibly in the UK.
At this point we want to become more powerful by technology partnership but the next big challenge for our company is to expand our business abroad and we are always looking for opportunities, he said.
When we make these technology partnerships, like the one with O2, we take no equity in our i-mode partners. Its risk-free expansion but we cannot monetise the relationship. We have plenty of cash, so buying a European operator is an option.
Mr Natsuno went on to explain that the UK market is uniquely attractive because it acts as the test market for the whole of Europe. There are two reasons why it is so advanced, he believes: the first is the high level of deregulation and the second is what he refers to as multicultural sampling.
Britain is a more mixed society than Japan, and the way different communities of users behave and use their phones in the UK teaches important lessons, he said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/