TKAI in the press - Japan Times

Japan Times

John Boyd's Computer Corner
Always on the move with iMode

March 1, 2000

With the number of mobile phone users topping 57 million and climbing as you read this, wireless telephones are now poised to overtake the number of fixed phone lines in Japan. And within this success story resides the fastest growing info-technology product ever introduced in Japan: iMode.

iMode brings Internet access to a pocket phone near you. In just 12 months since its introduction, iMode has picked up more than 4 million subscribers, making it a faster-selling device than the fax machine, PCs, or even game computers -- though Sony's PlayStation2 due to launch in a couple of days could be challenging this record a year from now.

So why is iMode so successful? Who is using it and for what purpose? And where is the technology going? You can find answers to these questions and much more in a recently published English-language market research report titled "Online Opportunities -- Understanding Japan's Internet-enabled cellular telephone market."

The report, from market researchers TKAI Inc., is based on interviews with industry players and the results of a survey of more than 800 respondents over the Internet. The report's 33 pages cover market background, how iMode works, applications, demographics and future prospects.

The mobile phone has a lot going for it. The price tag is cheap compared to fixed phones, and the purchasing process simple. While NTT DoCoMo may dominate the domestic mobile phone market, this does give it the advantage of creating solid industry standards, compared to the technology-fractured, albeit competitive, U.S. market.

By giving mobile phones Internet-access capability, they are rapidly becoming the most popular means of killing time or putting odd minutes to efficient use. Operated with just one hand, wireless phones can be used even on Japan's crowded trains, whipped out while waiting on the platform, or in a meeting room before the chairman arrives.

Users can at least appear to be productive operating one, even though they may be using it to entertain themselves, rather than to check business e-mail.

Obviously the tiny screens of mobile phones don't suit the yards of graphics and miles of text data you get on standard computer Web pages. So a service industry has sprung up to deliver iMode-compatible content.

DoCoMo has hundreds of content providers in its camp, while competitors like DDI and IDO are gradually building up their own base of suppliers.

Subscribing to say a news service is a cinch. Just maneuver to the category you want, scroll through the offer ings, chose a provider, input your PIN number and you are a reader for a couple of hundred yen a month.

No bothersome forms to fill in, and the subscription fee is added to your monthly phone bill. No wonder then that the report says mobile phones are now judged to be the most suitable device for selling digital content services to consumers.

Yes, but what kind of content, you ask?

Well, e-mail is by far the most popular service. Naturally, business e-mail is at the top of the list. Company e-mail can be accessed through a service like NetVillage, which claims more than 30,000 subscribers paying 200 yen a month. NEC is aiming to persuade 100,000 of its PC Biglobe subscribers this year to use its iMode e-mail service.

But e-mail can also be for personal use. Sending messages to friends, or corresponding with an e-mail pen-pal, for instance, perhaps via a service like Bikkuricom.com, which will match you up with a suitable e-partner according to criteria of your choosing.

Online banking offers many conveniences, given Japan's limited ATM banking service. The report counts 140 banks now providing some kind of services by wireless, though usually via dedicated services and not the Internet, for security reasons. Sanwa Bank, for instance, reckons it now has more customers banking by mobile phone than via PCs.

E-banking lets you check your accounts, look up exchange rates and transfer funds -- even while riding the Yamanote Line.

And if the Yamanote has you going round in circles, then you can subscribe to a travel service that will tell you where best to transfer, or try out JR's quickest-route service when you are going to new destinations.

There again, you might want to join the 600,000 other users of a Bandai service that provides daily quizzes and horoscopes. Wondering what movie is on where? There's a service for that too, along with screening times, theater locations and even synopses of the movies.

What you probably will not want to do is shop online. Given the mobile phone's tiny display, this is better left for your desktop and notebook computers. Same with downloading maps of your destination; it's likely easier to call for directions.

Yet even these services will improve with the introduction next year of 3G (third-generation) mobile phones, which will provide the high bandwidth necessary for video, color graphics and faster downloads.

The Online Opportunities report can be purchased online in PDF file format for $495: www.tkai.com. For a paper version, phone (03) 5464-0384 in Japan or (503) 235-4433 in the U.S.