MoboTap‘s popular Dolphin Browser has racked up over 16 million downloads worldwide, but that hasn’t stopped them from taking steps to expand internationally.
The company announced earlier this morning that they have entered into a new agreement with Japanese wireless carrier KDDI that will see their browser pre-loaded on a number of new Android handsets going forward.
KDDI is Japan’s second-largest wireless carrier with nearly 35 million subscribers under their belts, with just about 20% of those users owning smartphones. All things considered, it’s a big chance for MoboTap to bolster their brand outside the confines of the United States. → Read More
Japan, one of the most advanced mobile nations in the world, doesn’t want to be a “cell phone Galapagos” anymore, at least when it comes to payments over NFC. Paying with cell phones is already ubiquitous in Japan, but now the country’s top three telcos (NTT Docomo, KDDI au, and SoftBank Mobile) are trying to switch from the Nippon-only Osaifu Keitai system to the Type A and Type B NFC standards used globally.
The problem for the carriers is that Osaifu Keitai (“Portable Wallet”), which is based on Sony’s FeliCa RFID smart card technology, isn’t compatible to the Type A and B NFC standards. Docomo, KDDI, and SoftBank have set up the so-called Japan Mobile NFC Consortium to coordinate the domestic adoption of those standards with “service suppliers and handset manufacturers”. → Read More
Quite big news from Asia’s web world today: Japanese telecommunications giant KDDI (US$40 billion revenue) announced [JP] it will buy an 85.5% stake in CDNetworks, the Korea-based content delivery network, for US$167 million.
KDDI says the plan is to turn the CDNetworks HQ in Seoul into a subsidiary and to expand its global business (CDNetworks also has offices in the US, China, Europe, and KDDI’s home market of Japan). → Read More
Japan’s second biggest carrier KDDI took the wraps off [JP] a total of eight new cell phones for the domestic market today. To be more concrete, the telco (which is likely to become the second in Japan to provide the iPhone 5) showed six Android handsets (the Arrows Z is the most impressive) and two feature phones.
Here are all models that KDDI showed today: → Read More
It happened in the US a few months ago, and now something similar is about to happen in Japan, too: in one of Apple’s biggest markets, mobile carrier SoftBank is reportedly about to lose its exclusive domestic distribution rights for the iPhone and has to share the market with competitor KDDI.
Nikkei Business Online claims it has learned that KDDI au, Japan’s second biggest mobile carrier with 33 million customers, will provide the iPhone 5 starting next year. If the rumored roll-out of the phone next month will become reality in Japan, too, this means that SoftBank has a few months before its closest competitor can start tapping into their most important segment. → Read More
It doesn’t happen too often that a European web startup (or any foreign startup, for that matter) makes it in Japan, but Jimdo is one of the very few examples of those that did. After reading an article on the website building service from Germany on TechCrunch Japan a few years back, a team at Tokyo-based telecommunications giant KDDI (over 30 million mobile subscribers, US$40 billion revenue) decided to bring Jimdo over in 2009.
KDDI unit KDDI Web Communications localized Jimdo into Japanese in early 2009 and has been doing pretty well since (even though details are scarce). And it looks like starting today, things will run even smoother, as the Germans and their Japanese partner just announced a major milestone, namely a cooperation with Google Japan and other local businesses. → Read More
Last month, Fujitsu in Japan unveiled the IS12T, announced as the world’s first cell phone running on Windows Phone 7.5 aka Mango. And the country’s second biggest mobile carrier (and exclusive provider of the handset) KDDI au, didn’t lose much time: the IS12T became available today over here (here‘s Fujitsu’s official press release in English from today).
As we reported previously, the Mango handset comes with a 3.7-inch LCD with 800×480 resolution, a 13.2MP CMOS camera, a water- and shock-proof body, 32GB internal memory, a microUSB port, IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (no tethering), DLNA support, GSM/CDMA, etc. → Read More
Two days ago, Toshiba-Fujtsu in Japan took the wraps of the IS12T, the world’s first world’s first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (aka Mango). We were quick in giving you the first specs, but we now have a video that shows the 1 Ghz Qualcomm CPU-powered device in action – plus some more detailed specs. → Read More
As the sun just starts to set here on the West Coast, we’ve got a bit of news straight from the other side of the globe: Fujitsu and KDDI (Japan’s second largest wireless operator) have just confirmed that they will launch the world’s first phone running Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) sometime in September.
→ Read More
Kyocera did what a clever cell phone manufacturer whose home market has the oldest society in the world (over 20% of the Japanese people are 65 or older) has to do: it manufactured a cell phone specifically designed for the elderly. While the basic concept isn’t new, the way the so-called Mi-Look [JP] works certainly is. → Read More
First, Fujitsu-Toshiba unveiled the world’s first Symbian/Windows 7 dual boot cell phone in May, now this: Japanese business daily The Nikkei is reporting that the same company is ready to out the first handset in the world running on Windows Phone Mango, the mobile OS that Microsoft officially unveiled in May. → Read More
Do you miss the feeling of pressing physical buttons when you touch icons or letters on a smartphone touchscreen? Japan’s second largest mobile carrier KDDI is working on a display that recreates exactly that “clicking sensation” by combining vibration with a pressure sensor. → Read More
We’ve all got iPhone mania in the Valley, never mind that Apple tracks our every move and won’t explain why or that AT&T users can’t actually make calls.
But in Asia– and much of the rest of the developing world– the anticipated mobile giant is Android. Android phones are just starting to hit Japan and China, and a flood of cheap new models are expected to come on the market within the next year. Expect a flood of new apps to follow that, particularly in China where venture capital is flowing like water.
The rise of Android is as close to a no-brainer prediction as you can make with always volatile and uncertain emerging markets. Combine the market size of countries like Japan, China, Indonesia and India with cheap, increasingly-sophisticated devices and a massive base of gamemakers and hackers and someone is going to make a lot of money. → Read More
When Japan’s second biggest mobile carrier KDDI announced its winter and spring line-up back in October, the company also showed a very Kindle-like e-reader. Dubbed Biblio Leaf SP02, the e-ink device was introduced with an open price model, no exact release date and just a few specs – until today. → Read More
Japan’s second biggest telecommunications company KDDI is working on optimizing HD video streaming quality on smaller screens. Specifically, KDDI’s R&D Labs are working on making it easier to view HD content originally intended for larger screens on mobile displays. → Read More
Last week, we reported about the new cell phone line up of Japan’s second biggest mobile carrier, KDDI. The company unveiled no less than 19 new handsets, and among those, one model stood out because of its unique design: the aptly named X-Ray. → Read More
Last week at CEATEC 2010 in Japan, I saw attendees going nuts over the Galaxy Tab, which Japan’s biggest mobile carrier, NTT Docomo, won the local marketing rights for. And today, the No. 2 company in that space in Japan, KDDI, announced the so-called SMT-i900 [JP], which looks like a rebranded version of said tablet but is actually a different device. → Read More
KDDI, Japan’s second biggest mobile carrier, has today announced its cell phone line-up for the coming winter and spring. The company has shown not only three smartphones and two new iida “designer phones”, which we covered here, but also 14 new feature phones, some of which boast impressive specs. → Read More
Japan’s second biggest mobile carrier KDDI has just announced its cell phone line-up for the coming winter and spring. The company unveiled no less than 19 new handsets today: three smartphones, 14 feature phones and another two “designer phones”, which will be marketed under KDDI’s sub brand iida.
Here are all the main specs for the new smartphones and iida handsets (the feature phones follow in a separate post). → Read More
It took Japan’s handset makers and carriers a while, but interest in Android is picking up steam over here. Sharp, for example, announced two Android tablets for release later this year just last week. Earlier this year, the same company presented the IS01 (full details), an Android-based smartbook distributed by Japan’s No. 2 mobile carrier, KDDI au.
And today both companies announced [JP] the IS03, an Android-powered cell phone for next month. And the device boasts some pretty impressive (and quite unique) specs. It’s basically the first smartphone that meets the specific demands of Japan’s spoiled cell phone users. → Read More
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