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Apple’s iPhone goes on sale in Japan right now - Softbank makes a solid opening marketing move

It’s 7AM, and that means Apple’s 3G iPhone is going on sale at Softbank’s Omotesando location right now - but not until noon elsewhere. Am I posting from there? Heck no - I already have a phone, an iPod and two pockets, so I’m waiting for all the bugs to be worked out and for AU to start selling the thing.

There has been quite a bit of hoopla and discussion concerning the sale of the iPhone in Japan, and I think Softbank has made a brilliant marketing/PR decision in putting the iPhone on sale in Omotesando five hours before anywhere else in the country. First, this meant that the first iPhone bought in Japan would be bought in Omotesando, which is fashion culture center for the younger generation (or, perhaps better put, lies between Shibuya and Harajuku, the fashion culture centers for the younger generation). Read more

What Japan Thinks on Apple’s iPhone pricing

One of my favorite blogs, What Japan Thinks, has just published an excellent translation/writeup of a recent survey concerning Japanese consumer perceptions of Apple’s iPhone and it’s pricing. What I found most interesting is that just over 50% of respondents to the survey said that they would switch to an iPhone if the monthly cost came to 20,000 yen or less.

Softbank to sell the iPhone in Japan

This news is just out, but big: Softbank will be selling the iPhone in Japan later this year. Given that Softbank only sells 3G models, it looks fairly certain that the iPhone will be 3G here in Japan.

Details are scarce so far, but a huge marketing campaign is bound to be getting underway. No matter who got the deal to bring the iPhone to Japan, Dentsu turns out as the big winner, as they are contracted to do advertising for all three of Japan’s major mobile firms.

Algae as an oil source?

A recent Nikkei article reminds us that while the idea of using algae as a source of oil is not brand new, in the past it has never been seen as economically viable. That may be changing…

According to the article, Professor Makoto Watanabe at the University of Tsukuba is breeding a green algae called Botryococcus in his laboratory. Botryococcus is special because it produces large hydrocarbon molecules as a by-product of photosynthesis. According to the professor, if Botryococcus is cultivated efficiently, there is potentially no limit to the amount of oil it could produce.

Although the algae is currently producing less than half of the ten grams per liter that would make it cost-effective against oil, the algae also consumes carbon dioxide, and thus appears to yield more energy than it consumes. One current challenge is that only about 60% of the oil produced can currently be extracted, and the professor is looking at ways to boost that ratio.

In order to potentially boost productivity, Watanabe is hooking up with Denso to create a larger outdoor facility that should provide a greater yield of the green stuff.

According to the article, given a yield of 10 grams of oil per liter, it would take an area the size of Fukushima Prefecture to grow enough algae to meet Japan’s oil needs. Thus, a natural solution seems to be to cultivate the algae at sea. However, one major obstacle remains: the freshwater Botryococcus needs to mutate or be genetically engineered into a strain that can survive the high seas.

DoCoMo’s market share falls below 50% - mobile fragrance service to help revival?

According to data released by the Telecommunications Carriers Association, NTT DoCoMO’s market share of Japan’s mobile phone users has fallen below 50% for the first time since December 1998. In March, the number of mobile and PHS contracts at DoCoMo fell by 2.5%, giving the firm 49.7% of the market, or about 53.4 million of Japan’s 107.4 million subscribers. Meanwhile, KDDI’s AU brand picked up a 0.4% rise in contracts to pull a 29.5% market share, while the number of contracts at Softbank Mobile increased by 1.7% to reach 18.1% of market share.

When PHS is pulled out of the equation, DoCoMo still holds about a 52% market share on mobile contracts, though the number of DoCoMo mobile contracts fell by 2.4% in March. DoCoMo is in the process of pulling out of the PHS market.

In fiscal 2007, Softbank saw the greatest net number of new subscribers, with 2.67 million users added to its network. AU had 2.15 million new users while DoCoMo’s net gain registered a lagging 766,000.

Softbank’s strength in FY2007 depended partly on its pricing plans and its push for consumers to buy one-seg television enabled phones. We also shouldn’t forget Softbank’s marketing, which has included television commercials with Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt, as well as the series with the White Plan family, starring none other than Aya Ueto: Read more

Terrie’s take on Japan’s cyberspace; Japan’s spam blogs

If you don’t regularly follow, Terrie Lloyd’s weekly Terrie’s Take is a newsletter worth reading. This week Terrie focuses on Japan’s web businesses and cyberspace statistics. One number that caught my attention was that Japan’s 47.8 million Internet users viewed an average of 1,730 web pages each in February. These numbers come from NetRatings, and though I haven’t dug into the data to see how many web sites the average person visits, I hope to get time to do that soon. Terrie goes on to look at the top ten companies on the Japanese Web, and to show where SNS giant Mixi fits in. Read it here.

We also think it’s worth mentioning, in the wake of last year’s Technorati report claiming that 37% of blogs are written in Japanese (though Technorati didn’t seem to include Korea in their numbers), that Adam Richards at Mutant Frog Travelogue recently brought our attention to a CNet article reporting that Nifty has discovered that about 40% of blogs written in Japanese are actually spam blogs.

That’s a lot of spam…

Sony to stop making cellular phone handsets for DoCoMo

Sony has become the latest firm to announce that it is pulling out of the domestic cellular phone handset market, joining Mistubishi and Sanyo. The Nikkei tells is that Sony has made the decision in order to focus on selling handsets overseas, where greater growth potential exists. Demand for new handsets in Japan is apparently stagnating at about 50 million units per year, and analysts expect that market to begin shrinking.

Sony Ericsson earned about 2.03 trillion from handset sales in 2007, though only about 10% of that figure was generated by domestic sales. Development costs for new handsets are apparently approaching about 10 billion yen per unit, which is simply making production for the domestic market less and less profitable.

How will this move play out for Sony? Clearly, it intends to challenge Nokia, the current global market leader, as well as the other globally successful handset makers. Currently, Sony ranks fourth in global sales and holds about 9% of the market. Can it do better?

Blogosphere: Mixi’s new Terms of Use to allow it to sell crowdsourced content?

Mixi, Japan’s largest social networking site, has announced a new Terms of Use that is set to take effect on April 1 of this year, the effects of which could seemingly have serious implications for the website’s users.

Although the terms of use cannot be seen without logging in to Mixi’s site, the changes have been reported over at Slashdot’s Japan site. Blogger Fukumimi proves a good translation:

By agreeing to the ToU (which all users implicitly do by continuing to using the service):

1. Users grant Mixi a no-royalty, non-exclusive rights (of replication, broadcasting, public transmission, display, distribution, translation, alteration, etc) to any content uploaded onto Mixi servers.

2. Users agree not to assert their moral rights against Mixi. [Moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work. source:Wikipedia]

When the new ToU comes into effect, the terms will apply retroactively to content uploaded before the changes to the ToU.

What does this all mean? Essentially, Mixi will be able to use any content on its site - potentially even private messages between users - for any purpose it sees fit, including profit-making ventures.

If Mixi’s plan is to monetize its crowdsourced content, trouble could easily be seen on the horizon. As Matt at AltJapan points out, more than a few famous people currently write on Mixi. Would the firm dare to incite a potential legal challenge by attempting to profit from their work? Read more

Metropolitan Musings: Panasonic Goes Gaga Over Google

Tokyo: Google and Apple are the tech brands du jour right now, something not lost on Panasonic as it seeks to consolidate its brand globally. On January 6, Panasonic and Google announced that they are pursuing a television capable of showing Google’s YouTube videos and Picasa photos. This made the news, but is it really newsworthy? At first glance, such a move seems like a stroke of genius, converging computer content with the living room television: the long-sought holy grail in modern media of marrying content and delivery. In reality, it’s an idea that will probably never get far, but served the extremely useful purpose of injecting Panasonic into the news cycle—joined at the hip with Google—at the beginning of the annual International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas from January 7-10, the largest trade show in the industry. Not coincidently, Panasonic President Toshihiro Sakamoto was one of the six keynote speakers this year.

Simultaneously, they were also trying to beat Apple to the punch in the event that Apple CEO Steve Jobs were to announce something revolutionary at the MacWorld Expo on January 15. It turns out that Panasonic did not need to announce anything extraordinary as Apple’s key announcement, the MacBook Air—much more evolutionary than revolutionary—has received only a lukewarm reception from macheads. Read more

Nintendo’s Wii opening a big lead in sales over Sony’s PlayStation 3

Back in early December, we reported that Sony’s PlayStation 3 had outsold Nintendo’s Wii gaming console for the first time ever in November 2007. Back then, in the four weeks ending November 25, Sony moved 183,217 PS3 units in Japan, while Nintendo sold 159,193 of its Wii consoles. At the time, Sony’s 10% price cut was credited with pushing its sales over Nintendo’s, and the was some speculation as to whether or not the market for game consoles would switch to Sony’s favor.

That, however, does not seem to be the case. In December, Nintendo again outsold Sony. Enterbrain is now reporting that in the four weeks ending January 27, Nintendo opened a wide gap in sales figures, moving 479,931 units of the Wii versus Sony’s 165,719 PlayStation 3 shipments.

Why the sudden jump in Wii sales? Without a doubt, the “Wii Fit” has been a huge factor in Nintendo’s regained dominance. The piece of “exercise” hardware, which has not yet been on sale for ten weeks, is showing sales of 1.2 million units. If hardware is to become the factor adding alpha to sales figures in 2008, Sony might be in for some real trouble.

Hardware aside, Nintendo still seems poised to dominate on the software front. With the latest title featuring the Super Mario Brothers, “Super Smash Brothers Brawl,” released yesterday, Nintendo is starting to look unstoppable in the near-term. The market seems to agree: Sony shares fell just over 8% in today’s trading in Tokyo.

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