2011 was a big year for mobile growth in China, and that extended to China's 3G userbase. Historically, 3G hasn't been as popular in China as one might expect, but that's changing fast. According to year-end user data from China's three big telecom operators (China Mobile, China Telecom, and China Unicom), China's 3G user base has grown by over 80 million users in 2011. As of the end of 2011, here's how things stand: China Mobile has 51,210,000 3G users, for approximately 40 percent of China's 3G market. China Unicom has ...
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Jan 31 2012
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2011
Driven by Ameba, CyberAgent Continues to Grow
We’ve written much about Japanese internet entertainment company CyberAgent (TYO:4751) over the past year, ranging from its many game offerings for smartphones and social platforms, to its ventures abroad setting up offices in Taiwan and Jakarta, to helping international smartphone developers make inroads in Japan. The company recently announced its first quarter results, which saw net income up by nearly 40 percent. CyberAgent just published an online video presentation with slides about its first quarter, and I thought I’d share some highlights here. One aspect of the CyberAgent’s business which we ...
Jan 30 2012
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Finding a Connection: Android, Line, and Docomo’s Network Outage
In the wake of its most recent network disruption, Japanese mobile carrier NTT Docomo (NYSE:DCM) is scrambling to find ways to improve both its network service and its public image. The company has said that a number of free VoIP applications were a major cause behind the service disruption on Wednesday. We got in touch with a Docomo representative this afternoon to find out which apps were the biggest culprits. Not surprisingly Skype is one, but readers might be interested to know that up-and-coming voice chat app Line was the ...
Jan 30 2012
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1815
Chinese Government: Mobile Carriers Must Warn Users of Overages
So picture this: you're a Chinese smartphone user with, like almost every smartphone user in China, a limited data plan. You get 500 MB of data per month -- for example -- as part of your package and you're charged a per-MB rate for every bit of data you use beyond that. It's straightforward enough, but if your phone doesn't contain its own internet data usage tracker, it's pretty easy to go over your usage limit without even knowing it. That can be an expensive pain. And soon it should ...
Jan 30 2012
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1872
Yokohama DeNA BayStars Uniforms Unveiled, Available on DeNA’s Own E-commerce Platform
After DeNA (TYO:2432) finally closed the deal on acquiring a majority stake in Japanese baseball team, the Yokohama DeNA BayStars, many people were curious as to how much exposure the mobile gaming giant would get in return for its investment. In addition to getting ‘DeNA’ inserted into the official team name, the team's new uniforms were just recently announced, which also integrate the DeNA company name. You can see the uniform design below, which still focuses on the ‘BayStars’ team name, with both ‘DeNA’ and ‘Yokohama’ emblazoned in smaller lettering along ...
Jan 27 2012
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2087
Japan’s NEC Cutting 10,000 Jobs – Is Apple’s iPhone to Blame?
Some startling news coming from electronics maker NEC in Japan, who reportedly said yesterday that it will be cutting 10,000 jobs from its workforce, with most of those coming from its mobile unit. A report from Reuters cites competition from foreign players in the smartphone space, including Apple’s iPhone, negatively impacting NEC’s business in Japan. The report went on to say that NEC has cut its annual projected sales by almost a quarter to five million phones, and that the company would post a net loss of 100 billion yen (or ...
Feb 7 2012
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2389
Mixi and DeNA Announce Social Commerce Partnership
Japanese social networking giant Mixi and leading social gaming platform DeNA have announced a partnership in field of social commerce. The strength of Mixi is its real life social graph that extends over 25 million users as of September 2011. According to Mixi, people in their 20s account for about 50 percent of its total users. That breaks down to 29.3 percent for users age 20-24, and 22.1 percent for users ages between 25-29 (see interactive chart below). Most active users access Mixi from mobile which accounts for a whopping 80 ...
Jan 26 2012
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1742
Japanese Mobile Ad Company Mediba Continues Outward Growth With Korea Office
In 2011 we wrote quite a bit about Japanese internet companies expanding their businesses abroad, like GREE, DeNA, and CyberAgent, just to name a few. Mobile advertising company mediba is making a strong case to be counted among their ranks, with an office recently opened in Singapore, and now today, establishing an office in Korea. What all these companies have in common is that they are riding the worldwide growth of smartphones, and using platforms like Android and iOS to branch out. This latest move by mediba is intended to ...
Jan 25 2012
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2279
That Ain’t Very Rock ‘n’ Roll! Rolling Stone Website Blocks Itself in China
Access Denied! That’s the message greeting China-based readers of Rollingstone.com, the online version of the iconic music and cultural magazine Rolling Stone. But this isn’t the work of the rampaging Net Nanny but rather a deliberate block on Chinese IP addresses that seems to stem from the publishers. That ain’t very rock ‘n’ roll. As it’s a geolocation-based restriction, let’s say it has been geotarded, which is my favourite etymologically-edgy epithet. This is usually done by music or video content providers who want to stop certain regions from accessing licensed content, ...
Jan 25 2012
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2144
NTT Com to Acquire 74% Stake in India’s Netmagic Solutions
We just received word from Japan-based NTT Com that it plans to acquire a 74 percent stake in Netmagic Solutions, a datacenter service in India with datacenters across the country in Mumbai, Bangalore, Noida (Delhi-NCR), and Chennai. The acquisition sum wasn’t disclosed . NTT Com isn’t new to India. In fact, it started operation in India way back in 2003. Today it has offices in New Delhi, Neemrana, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Chennai. It also has offices in other parts of Asia including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Seoul. This ...
Jan 25 2012
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2474
Apple Shows Big Revenue Growth in US and Japan, Stays Focused on China
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) has announced its financial report for the first fiscal quarter of 2012, reporting revenue of $46.33 billion (PDF) which is a whopping 73 percent increase on the $26.7 billion from the same period last year. The company’s CEO Tim Cook noted that the US and Japan were particularly strong in the quarter, as you can see from the revenue chart below. Cook noted that the company was pleased with new carrier KDDI (TYO:9433) in Japan, and said that in China, China Unicom is still a ‘key partner’ — although ...
Jan 25 2012
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1766
Blaast Launches in Indonesia, Collaborates With XL
Blaast officially launched yesterday at the Kempinski Ballroom in Jakarta. Collaborating with telco XL, Blaast has brought its service to more than 40 million XL users, half of them being feature phone users. XL will get an exclusive contract for six months and after that Blaast can expand to other telcos, to reach as many users as possible. For those not familiar with Blaast, it is a mobile app development platform based on cloud technology. Backed by the founding engineers of Skype, Veturi Venture Accelerator, Steve Blank and ex-Nokia VP Pekka ...
Qihoo Says Apple is Re-approving Its iOS Apps, Drama Over
Feb 7, 2012
Beepmo: A New LBS Social Network for Professionals in Asia
Feb 7, 2012
Shanghai Boy Imitates Mobile Game, Jumps Off Five-Story Building
Feb 7, 2012
James Tong: How IDA and Gobi Ventures Help Startups Expand Into China
Feb 7, 2012
Beijing School Begins Using iPads in the Classroom
Feb 7, 2012