Vodafone Quitting Japan 169
dimension6 writes "Reuters is reporting that Vodafone, the world's largest mobile phone operator, is quitting business in Japan. Vodafone has been having a difficult time since they entered the Japanese market, a result of many blunders such as introducing Nokia brick phones where flip-phones are the norm and being slow to adopt 3G technology widely used by its competitors. Vodafone claimed that being part of the most advanced mobile phone market helped boost their sales elsewhere, but few Japanese-market phones have made it to other countries. The Japanese Vodafone division is likely to be bought by Softbank, the largest ISP in Japan."
Same goes for Sweden (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Same goes for Sweden (Score:4, Informative)
I moved my mobile phone accounts from Vodafone over to Optus here an Australia because they kept stuffing me around through their resellers. One reseller which I had an account through was being closed down by Vodafone and it became impossible for me to change my account.
The cheapest account they were offering me was $15/month. Optus had accounts at $5/month. It was an easy decision.
They keep trying to offer these deals where you pay $30/month and get (supposedly) more than $100 in calls but this just gives the impression to me that they are only interested in having phone mad teenagers as customers.
Re:Same goes for Sweden (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Same goes for Sweden (Score:2, Informative)
Trend? (Score:1, Interesting)
Take Microsoft and the Xbox for example. Playstation has had a good reception outside of Japan, but not vice versa.
Re:Trend? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree - however part of the problem is that Western Companies generally don't understand the demographic of their customers, instead they pretend Asia is just like the West eg:
It will be interesting to see how XBOX360 fares in Japan when the promised new RPG's come out. At the moment, Gamecube outsells it.
Western companies need to learn t
Re:Trend? (Score:3, Informative)
This is incorrect. Vodafone has both a 3G network in Japan (the same they have everywhere else) and several clam-shells on the market.
Phones do have very different demands on the Japanese market than Eu though. Software crashes is unacceptable to a large part of the market there. It's nowhere near as critical on other markets. OTOH that a phone is large like a small house is not a problem in Japan though. You reguralry see phones there that would be unsel
UTMS/W-CDMA 3G phone can roam with Docomo (Score:1, Informative)
Re:UTMS/W-CDMA 3G phone can roam with Docomo (Score:2)
Last I was in Japan several people I was there with noted that they got connected to DoCoMo sometimes. I never saw it myself though.
Re:Trend? (Score:2)
In Japan people tend to return the phone if it crashes. No matter how obscure the crash.
Re:Trend? (Score:2, Insightful)
There is an anedcotal story about how Nokia started selling their phones in China. Originally they just copied their western ad campaings, focusing on individuality, how you can customize your phone with differently colored cases, personalizing software etc, in effect "make this phone lik
Re:Trend? (Score:2, Insightful)
This potrayal of herd-mind [slashdot.org] (or hive-mind?) Asians on Slashdot has got to be the next big Slashdot meme. While it is true that Asians have historically more community minded that the West, community minded != groupthink. Indeed, give
Re:Trend? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps not, but it's absolutely true that there's a huge group-think thing going on, at least in Japan and Korea (the two countries I'm familiar with). ["Community minded", hahaha, now there's a euphemism for you! As far as I can see, the main factor is an unusually high degree of risk-ave
Re:Trend? (Score:2)
That isn't to say that people aren't individuals (I wasn't suggesting the hive-mind thing was literally true!), or that people don't want to be individuals (there are many indicators, as you mention, which show that they do), but it's pretty clear that there's still a pervasive fundamental fear of taking individual action that might not be approved of by whatever group people identify with
Re:Trend? (Score:2, Funny)
Vodaphone had some real Chutzpah, to think they co (Score:2, Insightful)
Only Apple has done that in recent memory, and they are hardly "normal".
Re:Vodaphone had some real Chutzpah, to think they (Score:2)
Sucks for business travellers (Score:1)
Vodafone wasn't really making much headway in Japan anyway. Large, clumsy phones designed for Europeans simply don't ji
Re:Sucks for business travellers (Score:2)
I'm hoping the opposite will happen. When I was last in Japan, my 3G phone could see two networks - Vodafone and NTT Docomo, but whenever it was out of Vodafone range and could see only Docomo, it told me "Emergency Calls Only". Now that the old JPhone network is no longer going to be owned by Vodafone, hopefully they'll go out and g
Re:Sucks for business travellers (Score:2)
In my experience it's actually the other way around. Many phones (particularly 3G) in Japan are too big to be sellable on the Eu market. Eu phones are really pretty darned good in this aspect.
They do have higher demands on software quality though.
FYI I work with developing mobile phones, for multiple markets.
Re:Sucks for business travellers (Score:2)
What a sight it is to see a Japanese school girl riding her bike down a street in the rain with an umbrella in one hand and her cell phone in the other, text messaging people as she juggles everything.
My wife's Japanese Vodafone phone is sort of lame (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:On the flip side (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:On the flip side (Score:3, Informative)
Re:On the flip side (Score:2)
Actuallly the 9300 is the first Nokia Communicator which comes in a useful size and weight, alas, they don't call it a Communicator any more.
The old Communicator type models where called Communicators by Nokia and a Brick, by everybody else.
Owners however seem to love them about as affectionately as I like my 9300.
For those with Japanese language skill (Score:2, Informative)
See Slashdot Japan article [slashdot.jp]
Amazing (Score:3, Funny)
Vodafone+Yahoo = Voodoo! [from slashdot.jp site]
Amazing... Over there they moderate each other up for different, yet equally stupid jokes.
Re:Amazing (Score:2)
Re:For those with Japanese language skill (Score:2, Funny)
Does anyone know what jokes are repeated there? My Japanese seems to be litte rusty.
Everyone seems to have a lowId there, is that where all the old slashdotters go to die?
Brick phones?? (Score:4, Informative)
I believe the term is "candybar" phones. Bricks are from the early 90's. Oh, and while I'm getting all technical on the names, the summary more than likely refers to "clamshell" phones, where the flip portion opens on the top like a clamshell. A "flip" phone is a phone where the mouthpiece flips down, like the oldschool motorola's from the mid 90's.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I currently do use a 6210 (a 3210 with WAP and less navigable menus), but that's because I got it for zero cost and my 3210 took a hit to the screen too many.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
I currently have an XDA2(/MDA2/qtek 2020) which is a full blown windowsCE PDA with built-in mobile phone (GPS/GPRS), but I'm thinking about getting me a simple phone to replace it. The PDA functions I don't use that often (except satnav); and as a phone it isn't great. It also keeps crashing..
The 3210 has 2 faults (1 of which the 6210 corrects); it'
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Yu are right about the 6210 being lighter and having a better battery. Especially one that desn't die more often than Kenny McCormick. We still have two 3210 replacement batteries somewhere.
Uhh (Score:3, Interesting)
Do I get bonus points for using a 9300, even though it folds, but it doesn't have a camera?
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
What? That's a fault? I pay extra to avoid clamshells...Why would I want *more* moving parts?
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
That's crazy talk. Cellular data usage (not necessarily WAP) is far from its promised land for a variety of reasons, but there are clearly use cases like checking ballgame scores that people will not be willing to carry a laptop around for. Cellular data will not replace laptops, but laptops don't cover every mobile demand either.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Not having your other pocket items randomly dialing numbers for you, or not having to punch in a knock code to allow you to dial.
3) A microphone that's somewhere in the vicinity of your mouth instead of pressed against your cheekbone.
3a) Smaller when folded, bigger when open.
4) If it's good enough for the Federation, it's good enough for me.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Removeable covers. They cost next to nothing; I replace the screen cover every 6 months or so (so, about once per 'phone).
Have you heard of keylock? It's not a "knock code", nor even a "lock code"; it's a combination of two keys, of which one is the key you'd press anyway to start finding a number.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Maybe we can find common ground in making fun of people with Bluetooth earpieces, [blackbeltjones.com] or the wired earbud with mic that makes the user look like a lunatic muttering to himself.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Any nerd worth his salt would look at a flip phone and say "hey, this thing has signal-bearing electronics in the crotch of a mechanical hinge -- we need to fix that right away!"
Of course, if you replace your phone every 9 months anyway, I suppose it's no big deal.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
3a is wrong... (Score:2)
Every flip phone, including the RAZR is thicker than a candybar counterpart. Compare RAZR to SLVR for example. There is a simple reason for this, candybar phones have a single display, flip phones have to stack up two displays on top of each other when the unit is closed.
So flip phones are always thicker, and typically larger overall, simply due to the presence of these additional displays.
Re:3a is wrong... (Score:2)
One of the first things I did when I got my current cell phone, my first flip phone after a candybar Nokia 6190 and a Sidekick, was to figure out how to do a Jim Kirk-style one handed flip opening with it.
flip phones have to stack up two displays on top of each other when the unit is closed
This is only true if your phone has an external display, so you can see a clock or caller ID without opening it. Admittedly useful, but not necessary. My phone do
Oh God, it's so true... (Score:2)
Heh. I've been looking at getting a new phone lately (my current one is suffering badly from Sony Ericsson Joystick Death) and getting interested in the LG 880 - a very Kirkish clamshell design. But before ordering it I had to actually poke and prod one in meatspace. So - earlier today I looked around so
I haven't seen one of those in years... (Score:2)
What model is this that still comes with no external display?
In a way, I'm glad to hear one exists, since it seems like every phone is sprouting zillions of features, whether people need them or not.
Some phones can be opened easily with one hand, some cannot. When looking at a flip phone, it's one of the things I check before even considering it. I do consider flip phones, but I don't consider swivels, as they are a
Re:I haven't seen one of those in years... (Score:2)
Samsung SCH-A650, which I use with Verizon. I don't know if it's still in production or not; I got it a year ago. It has a slightly more expensive twin, the SCH-A670, which does have an external display and also a camera.
I have a case on my phone, which makes it a little easier to flip open one handed since the plastic cover that protects the screen and keys makes it so that it doesn't close completely; rather it's a millimeter or two open.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2, Funny)
Perhaps you should stop stufing french fries in your ear.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Breakables (Score:2)
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Don't need to speak to them? Too late! You just answered the phone!
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
That's just an common industry term.
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:2)
Re:Brick phones?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nokia :: The Microsoft of Mobiles (Score:1)
Its no suprise that the Japanese market has rejected their crackpot mobiles.
I have been free from a Nokia for the past 2 years and absolutely love it.
Brick phones vs Flip phones (Score:3, Insightful)
Customers Decide Not Companies (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Brick phones vs Flip phones (Score:2)
Re:Brick phones vs Flip phones (Score:2)
Yes really. You compare a model which comes in a flat and flipper model and the flipper is almost certainly larger by volume. Since you mentioned your Razr I suggest you compare its volume to the flat version - the Slvr. The flipper version is larger by volume. Back in the days when GSM was young, I owned a Motorola Slimlite which was a flattened Startac and the same applied. It's not Motorola
Understand the market... (Score:4, Informative)
I had a beautiful clamshell 3G set light as a feather with media player, camera and imode 3-4 years ago. Snapping a picture of myself eating udon and mailing it to friends and family back then got me alot of ooos and ahhs
Vodafone coming to market with the most ugly brick phones ever, the likes which we've never seen before in Japan, didn't help.
Then there was them spending time and money on the pre-paid market. Basically, there is no pre-paid market there and there's a reason for that, nobody wants one. They came in thinking small, gunning for the niche market.
Then there was the reputation of the network. Vodaphone bought out an old network, can't remember the name, but it was on the brink of going bust because the quality sucked major. People knew Vodaphone as the one that bought out the sucky network.
Re:Understand the market... (Score:2)
And their toilets.. My god, their toilets [unsanity.org]
Re:Understand the market... (Score:2)
Re:Understand the market... (Score:1)
Re:Understand the market... (Score:2)
A few years back this was still true, but not anymore.
There are a few features which are available on the JP market which don't exist elsewhere, eg TV phones and systems which allow you to pay with your phone (Suica/Edy/Felica and such).
Other than that I have to say that the Eu market produces just as good, and in many cases, better phones than Japan now. Korea is another country to watch for new interesting stuff.
Re:Understand the market... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I believe they should have stayed in it (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks like they kept trying to push themselves onto the Japanese instead of adapting themselves, what with not adopting 3G and using a brickphone profile for their phones. How dumb is that? Was it a result of purely top-down leadership without some bottom-up feedback? I don't know but it looks that way if they are pulling out of Sweden too. Many companies try to do that when entering a foreign market, but they are usually spanked early on for their mistakes. I believe McDonalds serves lamb in India and wherever they go conform their menu to the locality.
But the idea that an American company can't do well in Japan is false, look at Apple:
http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/mar
Re:I believe they should have stayed in it (Score:1)
Unfortunately, the Nokia pho
Re:I believe they should have stayed in it (Score:4, Funny)
Of course, Vodafone is actually a British company.
Anyone know what Vodafone's Japan market share is? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think this sale is due to failure. Rather, it is just one business selling off a decent little piece to another corporation who wants it more. It happens all the time.
Btw, to whoever said "Japanese cells are 3 years ahead of everyone else", I would respectfully disagree. I'd rather have an American cell. Why? Because I hardly ever use the billion and one stupid bells and whistles in my Japanese phone. What I want to do is be able to talk on my cell phone, which is absurdly expensive in Japan. For nearly $40/month, you only get ninety minutes (and your billion and two text messages and emails eat into this time)! Nor do I find the reception better in Japan than in comparable areas of the US. Reception here is near universal in the major cities unless you are underground, gets a little spotty as you move into the burbs (especially indoors), and fails quite often in the countryside unless you happen to be at a high elevation. Same is true in the states, except we have less area that is city and more that is burb and countryside.
Japanese cells aren't better. Rather, Japanese spend lots more money on them and buy all the bells and whistles that 90% of Western users just don't care about.
And are you a typical Japanese customer? (Score:1, Flamebait)
While I don't doubt there are a lot of you world wide it is not a market a vodaphone could give a shit about.
Everything you say is confirming that the Japanese do not have the same tastes as westerners. You are a perfect vodaphone customer, the japanese are not.
Vodafone forgot to adapt and are now bowing out to save further problems while they can still recoop their money. It is nothing new. Other western
Re:And are you a typical Japanese customer? (Score:1)
Re:And are you a typical Japanese customer? (Score:2)
In all fairness it's only been available for about 3 months now, but I've not seen anyone with an i-mode enabled phone, and most of the phones O2 sell have either WAP or HTML browsers instead of i-mode ones. I've also not seen any marketing for i-mode from O2, so I'm not sure what the future holds for it.
Ewan
Then why do nearly 1/3 of my Japanese (Score:2)
Re:Anyone know what Vodafone's Japan market share (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.wirelesswatch.jp/index.php [wirelesswatch.jp]
Vodafone is tryig to force the western business model in Japan and they have failied quite badly. The first batch of 3G phones that it introduced were taken from the Western world (Nokia 6650, SE V800, 2 models from Motorola, etc). That was the month they had the worst loss of customers (abt 60,000). Unfortuntely, the Japanese market user base is driven by handsets. If you do not have a good line up, they will be gone the next month. Japanese users are not afraid to change numbers (number portability will come later this year).
You are a typical Vodafone customers whose main use of mobile phone is voice. Japanese mobile martket have moved pass the voice stage where income from data and other broadband services are higher then voice. Vodafone Live! is not as good compared to i-mode and ezweb. They lost a lot of high ARPU customers to the other 2 mobile operators. It is hard for Vodafone to operate successfully in Japan with their global business model that they try to apply to all markets. Top management has changed 2 times last year. They are now having some limited recovery after re-intruducing Japanese specific handsets from Sharp and Toshiba. Expats like yourself are too small in numbers to sustain Vodafone in Japan.
Actually, expats do not use Vodafone that much (Score:2)
Re:Anyone know what Vodafone's Japan market share (Score:2)
30% of yours? (Score:2)
And of course it's a personal preference, but I find the functionality of the free or nearly-free phones I've gotten here to far exceed that of the phones my relative
Re:30% of yours? (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY2006
Of the 92 numbers I have (Score:2)
Re:Anyone know what Vodafone's Japan market share (Score:2, Informative)
Oh, and that spotty reception of yours could be due to it being Vodaphone too - one of the major (perceived, perhaps real) weaknesses is supposed to be their scanty coverage compared to their competition.
quick history lesson... (Score:5, Informative)
Vodafone has been going steadily downhill since their foray in to the market here. Their entry point was by buying out J-Phone and rebranding it as Vodafone K.K.. J-Phone was originally a division of JR, the national rail company. An interesting side effect of their original ownership was that in the early days of cell-access their networks first expanded along the railway networks giving them quite effective penetration even though their coverage was in fact quite spotty. J-Phone never quite reached the market-size of DoCoMo (the cellular division of NTT - the national telco), but was effectively their main competition with a reputation for innovation, which had cornered the younger "cooler" demographic. They were one of the first here to provide Java enabled phones and as the original originators of the camera-phone they have made their mark worldwide. In fact one of the last phones they brought to market before the buyout was the first phone to crack the 1 megapixel mark.
No wonder Vodaphone wanted a piece.
Some vodaphone insiders here have speculated that the main reason for the company's gradual descent has been the resistance of "old-Japan" upper management to outside pressures, almost more on principle than on particular merit, although some of those outside ideas have seemed to lack local market knowledge, amongst other things. Vodafone stagnated at a crucial point unfortunately - they were technologically ahead of the pack - their stall allowed competitors to take up the slack and old behemoth Docomo to pull ahead as many customers returned to DoCoMo for the newest gimmicks while vodaphone coasted...
Its not hard to still spot J-phone branded phones around which speaks volumes about the strength of the original company in this "new and shiny" crazed market. I actually think this is a good thing - if Vodafone was only as commited as a three year ownership and doesn't have the kahoonas to turn things around, its only their loss. Hopefully this is the begining of a return to their former glory and I'll finally be able to rid myself of this stupid AU phone...
Like department stores (Score:3, Informative)
How long before they pull out of the US? (Score:2)
Vodafone also have a stake in a CDMA network in the US. How long before they divest that as well? When they are backing 3GSM in the rest of the world it seems odd to have a stake in CDMA in the US.
Re:How long before they pull out of the US? (Score:2)
Re:How long before they pull out of the US? (Score:3, Interesting)
With quad-band or multi-band phones the frequency difference on the handset side is not that bad.
A more difficult thing for Vodafone is that the infrastructure side is fully different.
The services Vodafone can provide their customers in the US is different from what they can offer in the rest of the world and their services do not cross the different networks. They can not build a global brand which is also visible in that they do not promote the name Vodafone in the US.
If there is no economy of scale an
Re:How long before they pull out of the US? (Score:2)
Seems to me that the investment makes sense if they get a better return on it than they could've gotten from some other investment. Investing in VZW certainly must've worked out better than investing in any other US cellular company would have a
Oblig Bareback Mtn reference (Score:1)
Err, wait. Never mind...
-MJ
This might be the end of cool phones... (Score:3, Informative)
Vodafone Japan first with smart phones (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's put a few of these things to bed... (Score:4, Informative)
DoCoMo has a loyal and strong customer base. Despite being more expensive than the other two networks, it is popular amongst the middle-aged and business customers who rarely switch networks. Furthermore these customers are less likely to upgrade their handsets on a regular basis, bringing a long-term return on the heavily subsidised phone the customer bought way back when. DoCoMo don't need to work to hard to maintain their position.
KDDI (AU) on the other hand has gone from arguably being the third-best service offering to the biggest innovator in the space of just a few years. AU has introduced attractive service plans, and intelligently captured a large share of the student market by offering an across the board 50% discount to anyone in full time education. This has reaped dividends several years later as those students are now graduating and converting to full price customers. Additionally they have invested very heavily in their 3G network, with a significantly higher proportion of their customers transferring to 3G services than either of their competitors. My own AU phone is capable of data transfer of 2.4Mbps (faster than most peoples landline based broadband in a lot of countries!) The other two networks are way behind on this count. AU has also capitalized on the i-pod craze by making virtually all handsets mp3 capable and introducing their own mobile version of i-tunes, which has access to a lot of Japanese artists unavailable on other online stores. I'd take issue with the guy moaning about smartphones. The AU OS is perfectly functional and offers a catalogue of hundreds if not thousands of downloadable JAVA applications. My phone can also handle Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF files and has a full featured web browser. Perfectly smart enough for my needs, and no Windows in sight.
And what has Vodafone done in this time? Well to be honest, not very much. They were late to the table with their 3G offering, which works only in mainly urban reception areas. Most importantly, they haven't done anything to really differentiate themselves or their service which is where AU have really scored big points. I don't know the statistics, but I'd say that Vodafone have struggled, not so much because they have failed to win customers, but because both they and DoCoMo have lost market share to AU.
The one comment I'd seriously disagree with is the "brick phone" suggestion in the original story. This is just bullshit. Walk into any Vodafone store and you'll see upwards of 20 handsets, maybe 2 of which are brick phones, and the rest are clamshells. I hardly think this is the cause of their failure, especially when DoCoMo and AU both offer bricks of their own.
Re:Let's put a few of these things to bed... (Score:2)
Unbundled to Death (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe it's just too competitive in Japan. While Vodaphone is used to making $BILLIONS without hardly any effort at all.
Good riddance (Score:2)
I walked into a store in Akiba and saw a tiny flaccid Nokia booth showing off a 68xx phone, which I actually want, and after comparing the build and the low-res screen, walked away wondering, "who are the poor suckers who thought this thing would sell in the Japanese market?"
Finding out it was Vodaphone was disappointing. Finding out they're folding from
Re:But they said (Score:2, Funny)
Re:docomo outside of Japan? (Score:2)