Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Top 10 mobile trends for 2009
Answering the question "Top 10 mobile trends for 2009: what would you choose?" We answer from our perspective here in Tokyo:
- Mobile payments and wallet phones
see our mobile payment report - GPS and location based services (LBS) such as navigation and mapping
see our location based services (LBS) report - Mobile search including location related search
- QR codes and other 2D bar codes for information input into mobile phones
see our location based services (LBS) report - Ultra low cost mobile phones for low end not only in emerging markets but also in advanced countries in economic crisis times
- Subsidized $1 mini-laptops with flat rate HSDPA (7.2Mbps) data plans
- WiMax networks come into commercial service
- Embedded B2B applications
- Beautiful OLED ultra-high resolution screens (bigger than iPhone displays)
- Mobile agent services
Labels: LBS, mobile payment, oled, QR, trends, walletphone
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Japan trends 2008/2009
One of our clients in the financial industry asked me several trend questions:
Q1: Biggest surprise in Japan in 2008?
- Collapse of Japan's mobile phone handset market (read our blog). In this context the Japanese telecom equipment makers association invited me to give a presentation, which was booked out 2-3 weeks ahead - about 100 Japanese telecom equipment maker managers attended! The General Affairs Vice-Minister / Secretary of State attended.... ( download my presentation here - in Japanese language: "Paradigm shift and opportunities for Japanese mobile phone makers" )
- The dramatic increase of acquisitions by Japanese companies:
* Panasonic's acquisition of SANYO (read analysis in our blog)
* Nomura's acquisition of a big chunk of Lehman Brothers assets (read about a presentation by Nomura's CEO Kenichi Watanabe)
* SONY's acquisition of the outstanding part of SONY-Bertelsmann music
* TDK's acquisition of Germany's EPCOS
* NTT-Data's acquisition of Germany's Cirquent (BMW's IT company)
* Fujitsu's acquisition of the outstanding 1/2 of Fujitsu-Siemens
Q2: Biggest changes for 2009?
* Hopefully LED/Solid state lighting going mainstream to save energy
* Batteries and solar cells in combination starting to replace petrol for cars
* Solar cell battle (between Q-cells, SHARP and others)
Q3: Key topics in Japanese media for 2009?
* Financial crisis and reviving the economy
* Crisis of the car industry - and car industry's paradigm shift
Q1: Biggest surprise in Japan in 2008?
- Collapse of Japan's mobile phone handset market (read our blog). In this context the Japanese telecom equipment makers association invited me to give a presentation, which was booked out 2-3 weeks ahead - about 100 Japanese telecom equipment maker managers attended! The General Affairs Vice-Minister / Secretary of State attended.... ( download my presentation here - in Japanese language: "Paradigm shift and opportunities for Japanese mobile phone makers" )
- The dramatic increase of acquisitions by Japanese companies:
* Panasonic's acquisition of SANYO (read analysis in our blog)
* Nomura's acquisition of a big chunk of Lehman Brothers assets (read about a presentation by Nomura's CEO Kenichi Watanabe)
* SONY's acquisition of the outstanding part of SONY-Bertelsmann music
* TDK's acquisition of Germany's EPCOS
* NTT-Data's acquisition of Germany's Cirquent (BMW's IT company)
* Fujitsu's acquisition of the outstanding 1/2 of Fujitsu-Siemens
Q2: Biggest changes for 2009?
* Hopefully LED/Solid state lighting going mainstream to save energy
* Batteries and solar cells in combination starting to replace petrol for cars
* Solar cell battle (between Q-cells, SHARP and others)
Q3: Key topics in Japanese media for 2009?
* Financial crisis and reviving the economy
* Crisis of the car industry - and car industry's paradigm shift
Labels: Japan, technology, trends
ICT trends for Japan
One of the Embassies here in Tokyo asked me to write a report about ICT trends in Japan...
Mobile phone sector
Pushed by the Government the mobile operators changed the business model for mobile phone sales from a straight subsidy model to an installment payment system. As a consequence the mobile phone sales collapsed, creating huge difficulties for Japan's mobile phone makers, but greatly improving the financial results of mobile operators.
An interesting trend is the growth of the "smart-phone" market (Blackberry, HTC-Windows-Mobile phones, iPhone etc.) and mini-PCs, which can be acquired for YEN 1 with subsidy from eMobile.
In this context the Japanese telecom equipment makers association invited me to give a presentation, which was booked out 2-3 weeks ahead - about 100 Japanese telecom equipment maker managers attended! The General Affairs Vice-Minister / Secretary of State attended.... ( download my presentation here - in Japanese language: "Paradigm shift and opportunities for Japanese mobile phone makers" )
Nokia's termination in Japan
On November 27th, 2008, global press announcements announced that NOKIA will stop making mobile phones for Japan's mobile operators with immediate effect. DoCoMo and SoftBank had NOKIA phones in preparation and had already started marketing efforts - these were cancelled a few days after NOKIA's press announcement.
NOKIA had founded the Japan subsidiary on March 3rd, 1989, almost exactly 20 years ago, thus NOKIA has given up entering Japan's mobile phone market after 20 years of efforts. NOKIA will not totally shut down in Japan, NOKIA announced that R&D and procurement will continue, and VERTU announced to enter Japan's market with a mobile vertual network operator (MVNO) model renting network capacity from DoCoMo, and opening own shops.- However the opening of these direct VERTU stores keep being postponed.
NOKIA joins the row of European telecom companies which have given up operations in Japan: Vodafone, Cable & Wireless.
M&A
European company's acquisitions in Japan are currently almost non-existent, including the ICT sector. By far the largest acquisition in Japan by a company from the European/Mediterranian area was not by an EU company, but by the Israeli company Iscar which acquired the Japanese company Tungaloy for around US$ 1 Billion. However, this acquisition was driven by US capital. Read details in our blog here.
In the opposite direction there is a boom of Acquisitions by Japanese companies abroad. For example, TDK acquired the German company EPCOS, Fujitsu acquired the outstanding 1/2 of Fujitsu-Siemens, NTT-Data acquired 72.9% of Cirquent which was a 98% subsidiary of BMW before. SONY acquired the outstanding 1/2 of the SONY-Bertelsmann Music Group from Bertelsmann.
The current trend is definitely a strengthening of Japanese acquisitions in Europe.
The most important issue however are not the acquisition transactions themselves, but the crucial issue will be whether these acquisitions create or destroy value. In many cases the difficulties to overcome "cross-cultural" issues are enormous. Many huge wrecks line the road: Vodafone-Japan, Cable-Wireless-Japan, NOKIA in Japan, or DoCoMo's overseas acquisitions. There are also many success stories - the most impressive and famous one Nissan-Renault, however there are many more. An interesting case in progress is Nippon-Sheet-Glass (now NSG Group)'s acquisition of Pilkington Glass (read about a presentation by NSG's CEO here in our blog).
Mobile phone sector
Pushed by the Government the mobile operators changed the business model for mobile phone sales from a straight subsidy model to an installment payment system. As a consequence the mobile phone sales collapsed, creating huge difficulties for Japan's mobile phone makers, but greatly improving the financial results of mobile operators.
An interesting trend is the growth of the "smart-phone" market (Blackberry, HTC-Windows-Mobile phones, iPhone etc.) and mini-PCs, which can be acquired for YEN 1 with subsidy from eMobile.
In this context the Japanese telecom equipment makers association invited me to give a presentation, which was booked out 2-3 weeks ahead - about 100 Japanese telecom equipment maker managers attended! The General Affairs Vice-Minister / Secretary of State attended.... ( download my presentation here - in Japanese language: "Paradigm shift and opportunities for Japanese mobile phone makers" )
Nokia's termination in Japan
On November 27th, 2008, global press announcements announced that NOKIA will stop making mobile phones for Japan's mobile operators with immediate effect. DoCoMo and SoftBank had NOKIA phones in preparation and had already started marketing efforts - these were cancelled a few days after NOKIA's press announcement.
NOKIA had founded the Japan subsidiary on March 3rd, 1989, almost exactly 20 years ago, thus NOKIA has given up entering Japan's mobile phone market after 20 years of efforts. NOKIA will not totally shut down in Japan, NOKIA announced that R&D and procurement will continue, and VERTU announced to enter Japan's market with a mobile vertual network operator (MVNO) model renting network capacity from DoCoMo, and opening own shops.- However the opening of these direct VERTU stores keep being postponed.
NOKIA joins the row of European telecom companies which have given up operations in Japan: Vodafone, Cable & Wireless.
M&A
European company's acquisitions in Japan are currently almost non-existent, including the ICT sector. By far the largest acquisition in Japan by a company from the European/Mediterranian area was not by an EU company, but by the Israeli company Iscar which acquired the Japanese company Tungaloy for around US$ 1 Billion. However, this acquisition was driven by US capital. Read details in our blog here.
In the opposite direction there is a boom of Acquisitions by Japanese companies abroad. For example, TDK acquired the German company EPCOS, Fujitsu acquired the outstanding 1/2 of Fujitsu-Siemens, NTT-Data acquired 72.9% of Cirquent which was a 98% subsidiary of BMW before. SONY acquired the outstanding 1/2 of the SONY-Bertelsmann Music Group from Bertelsmann.
The current trend is definitely a strengthening of Japanese acquisitions in Europe.
The most important issue however are not the acquisition transactions themselves, but the crucial issue will be whether these acquisitions create or destroy value. In many cases the difficulties to overcome "cross-cultural" issues are enormous. Many huge wrecks line the road: Vodafone-Japan, Cable-Wireless-Japan, NOKIA in Japan, or DoCoMo's overseas acquisitions. There are also many success stories - the most impressive and famous one Nissan-Renault, however there are many more. An interesting case in progress is Nippon-Sheet-Glass (now NSG Group)'s acquisition of Pilkington Glass (read about a presentation by NSG's CEO here in our blog).
Labels: ict, Japan, mobile phone, nokia, smart phone, smartphone, trends
