PHS 2008 Japan Market Review

(by Masashi Kurosawa, KYOCERA Corporation)

As a symbol of China’s rapid growth, Beijing Olympics was held with great magnificence.　Then all of a sudden, the year of 2008 made a sharp turn. News about worldwide economic recession prevails so much that the glory of Olympics was almost forgotten. The following review is about PHS development in Japan in the turbulent year of 2008.

Service

In Japan, mobile carriers launched free voice service plan among users in the same carrier’s network or among registered family members successively. Although due to the restriction set to the service object and service time, the influence of these plans hasn’t become as deep and thorough as WILLCOM Fixed-rate Plan, which was launched in the year of 2005 to allow PHS users to call each other 24 hours free of charge. WILLCOM roused the demand for “double folder”, which refers to people who have mobile phone choose PHS to carry out voice communication with other PHS users.

It is absolutely common among the young generation to hold both PHS and mobile handsets. To further facilitate the communication among PHS users, WILLCOM Meeting service was initiated to enable the simultaneous talk of up to 7 users. In addition, the owner of PHS handsets with “Chat by Writing” function can enjoy the service to send or receive hand-written message, pictures and photos at real time. This kind of new and unique service is becoming more and more popular among the young generation.
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Regarding data communication, WILLCOM started service of WOAM Type G to provide the speed of up to 800kbps, while other carriers have moved to services that provides over 3mbps high-speed data communication with CDMA Rev.A and HSDPA technologies. It seems that WILLCOM provides less quick speed to other carriers on specification, although as a matter of fact, WILLCOM service provides as good effective speed if not better, due to the micro cell technology it adopted. WILLCOM is planning to start the new service of WILLCOM CORE adopting XGP technology in the year of 2009 and Japanese data communication market is expected to face even severe competition.

Terminals

The best seller of PHS terminals in 2008 is HONEYBEE released by Kyocera in spring. スthe stylish design and the 5 color variation were highly evaluated by the market. Besides, the thickness of 9.9mm’s slim design, perfectly matched the users’ need of PHS as their 2nd handset. The successive model HONEYBEE2 with camera function was released in November 2008 and received positive market feedback.
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HONEYBEE by KYOCERA Corp.

WILLCOM is now marketing a new category of terminals including smartphone “WILLCOM 03” and UMPC(Ultra Mobile PC) “WILLCOM D4”. WILLCOM D4 has adopted the latest Microsoft operating system Windows Vista®, which enables its correspondence to a wide range of application software and internet service. Besides, it is also the first※1 telecommunication terminal in the world that carries Intel® Centrino® Atom™ processor technology, which realized its superior mobility and low power consumption. WILLCOM D4 has also adopted 3-way style in its design. Closing the keyboard to View Style, sliding the keyboard to Input Style, or tilting the screen to operate like laptop. Style can be adjusted in accord with the environment in office, home or in movement.
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WILLCOM D4

WILLCOM 03 adopted pure flat surface for its liquid crystal screen, which avoided the unevenness of the operation buttons and gave it an elegant and smooth appearance. Further more, but adopting illumination touch, it is also a smartphone model with highly convenient usability. With 1seg tuner built in, a user can also enjoy watching digital TV easily. As to the Operating System, Microsoft’s latest platform for mobile device, Microsoft® Windows Mobile® 6.1 Classic’s Japanese version was adopted. This makes the model the first in Japan to carry Windows Mobile 6.1.
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WILLCOM 03

Japanese handset makers tend to release new models together three times a year in spring, summer and winter respectively. As we issue this newsletter, we are also expecting the release of 2009 spring models soon.

Summary


PHS has made a good achievement on voice communication market in the year of 2008, although it was forced into a hard competition by the entry of new operators in the market regarding data service. It failed to match HSDPA’s data communication speed on specification, neither has it fought back effectively to competitor’s action to give away free mini PC to new subscribers. Despite, WILLCOM is to start the brand new service of WILLCOM CORE, which adopts XGP specification in 2009. Succeeding the advantage of micro cells adopted in traditional PHS, XGP is said to be able to provide a speed of up to 20mbps upon adopting the new technology. Although, to gain the market support, providing demanding service and new application at low cost must also be realized. The launch of WiMAX service, a competing system to XGP is also on schedule. Japan’s date communication market is to enter a new era in the year of 2009.