Masayuki Hirata, SVP and MD of the global business division and CFO of NTT DoCoMo, explains how the company intends to keep its business going by searching and adopting new technologies and idea at home and aboard
Daily: What are the key growth areas for DoCoMo in its domestic market‾
Hirata: Although we think there is still plenty of room for growth in the conventional mobile phone business - our core business - we would like to position mobile phones as tools for 'lifestyle infrastructure.' This effort will be guided by our goal of making communications more personal, ubiquitous and seamless.
It is our belief that future growth and development will depend on transforming the mobile phone from communications infrastructure to personal lifestyle infrastructure.
How is your 3G FOMA service - what are the most popular apps‾
At the end of March 2007, there were more than 35 million 3G FOMA subscribers, which means two-thirds of all DoCoMo subscribers had migrated to 3G FOMA. By March 2008, we expect 80% of subscribers, or 44.4 million users, to migrate to 3G FOMA.
Music and game content is very popular among younger subscribers. Our latest handsets - the FOMA 904i series launched in May - offer substantially reinforced entertainment capabilities. For example, they support Chokkan Games, which are played using intuitive motion - by tilting or shaking the handset - and Uta-Hodai, a flat-rate music download service. These handsets challenge the conventional wisdom regarding mobile phones.
Could you give an update on the Super 3G project - how important is this to the company's future‾
Super 3G is a radio access technology to enhance significantly the current 3G FOMA system. The technology is being standardized in the 3GPP under the name of Long Term Evolution (LTE). The main specifications should be completed by September, and NTT DoCoMo has provided the leadership and commitment to ensure this target is met.
As early as June 2006, as soon as the LTE study phase was finished, NTT DoCoMo initiated early development of LTE by identifying those vendors capable of developing LTE equipments.
This has enabled prototype performance testing this year. The aim is to complete the development by 2009 at which point the commercialization strategy will be sketched out to reflect market demand.
What are your key focus areas for the next 12 months‾
As far as services are concerned, we are targeting full-scale deployment of services launched in 2006, such as mobile credit. We will also create new business models linking businesses with consumers (B2B2C), and expand our scope to include commercial users and subscription-type services that do not depend on traffic. Regarding networks, in addition to aiming for higher speed and capacity, we will upgrade networks that support demand for greater use of personal video content.
As for handsets, the emphasis is on advanced features; for example, making support for HSDPA, 'One-segment' mobile TV, and international roaming services a standard feature.