J-Phone to Introduce Mega Pixel 3G Wireless Handset
NEC to Supply 3G Wireless Infrastructure to Hutchison 3G
Casio and LG TeleCom Tie up to Supply Camera Handsets to South Korea
NEC Prototypes 3G Wireless Handset with Digital TV Viewing
NEC to Reenter U.S. Cellular Phone Market
Nokia Introduces Tri-band GSM Handsets in Japan
Sony Ericsson Losses Continue
Palm OS Smart Phone to Debut in China
Japanese Handset Shipments to Rise in FY2003

J-Phone of Japan plans to commercialize a 3G wireless handset with a mega pixel camera in the fall of 2003. The carrier has been offering the Vodafone Global Standard service (VGS), an international roaming service, for its 3G wireless handsets since December 2002. However the VGS does not support Sha-mail service (J-Phone’s photo mail service) and area coverage of the VGS within Japan is limited compared to its existing service at this point. The VGS has not been increasing its subscription base.

J-Phone plans a full fledged deployment of the VGS starting from fall 2003 and the VGS support of Sha-mail is one way to accelerate the subscription gain of the VGS. J-Phone’s plan is to allow users to transmit million pixel class images using the VGS service. Along with high-resolution still image transmission, J-Phone will enable the VGS service to support the movie Sha-mail service which supports transmission and receiving of video data. Users will be able to handle 30 second to 1 minute long video clips with image size to be adjusted to large screen size of a handset. J-Phone’s PR Department is tightlipped about the timing of Sha-mail support, specifications of the handsets and fee structures. J-Phone plans to acquire one million subscribers for the VGS by the end of fiscal 2003. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

NEC announced on July 14, 2003 that the company would supply 3G wireless infrastructure to Hutchison 3G, a wireless service carrier in Hong Kong. NEC will supply the infrastructure in cooperation with Siemens Mobile of Germany. Hutchison 3G plans the commercial launch of W-CDMA 3G service in Hong Kong in August 2003. NEC is going to supply over 1000 base stations for the protocol to cover all of Hong Kong. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Casio of Japan and LG TeleCom of South Korea have joined in development of 1.8GHz CDMA handsets for the South Korean market. Casio will supply key components and related technology of camera handsets to LG TeleCom. Design, development and manufacturing of the new handset will be carried out in South Korea. The handset will be available from LG TeleCom in South Korea starting from mid July 2003. The handset will feature a 350,000-pixel CMOS camera, a 132 x 176 dot 260,000-color TFD LCD display as main display, and a 72 x 96 dot 4096-color STN sub LCD.

According to the South Korean press, the handset is named as CAN U? HS-5000. It contains an MSN5100 chip and a 350,000 pixel camera. The handset will support an Automatic Exposure function which allows the camera to detect the brightness and adjust the exposure automatically. The image sensor is Dynastron 1 supplied by Toshiba. The HS-5000 has a close-up function, which enables image capturing from 7cm away, the first time for any camera handset sold in the South Korean market. The CAN U? captures video and supports zoom in/out, 9-sequential photo taking, sticker photos, photo studio effects and MMS function. The handset has a simple but high quality design and will sell for over 400,000 won ($339 @ 1179 won/$US 1). [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

NEC of Japan announced on July 10, 2003 that the company has developed a 3G wireless handset capable of receiving terrestrial digital TV broadcasting. It verified over 1 hour of TV viewing on the handset screen after the handset was fully charged. NEC will offer the handset to wireless service carriers for early commercialization and hopes to commercialize it during the fiscal year 2004 (April 2004 to March 2005).

The prototype handset supports ISDB-T, a terrestrial digital broadcasting standard, and receives one segment broadcasting for cellular phones. NEC installed newly developed small antenna, UHF tuner, OFDM modulation LSI in its existing 3G wireless handset, N2051. The handset can replay 15 frames per second with SQVGA resolution (160 x 120 dots) on a 2-inch LCD screen. The image format is MPEG4.

Terrestrial digital broadcasting for TVs will begin in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka in December 2003. However, the timing for the broadcasting launch for handsets has not been announced. Many think broadcasting for cellular phones is likely to start in 2005. Handset manufacturers other than NEC are actively developing handsets with viewing capability of digital terrestrial broadcasting. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

NEC is going to reenter the U.S. cellular phone market. Sources close to the matter say NEC will supply a handset with web browsing capability to corporate users.

Another source reported that NEC is going to supply handsets to AT&T Wireless, the third largest wireless carrier in the U.S., in the summer of 2003. NEC, which withdrew from the U.S. cellular phone market in 2000 as the price competition intensified, decided to reenter the market with high value handsets with functions such as net access capability and embedded cameras. The announcement of reentry to the U.S. cellular phone market will be made in the week of July 20. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Nokia Japan began sales of tri-band GSM handsets Nokia 5100 and Nokia 6610. Both handsets support GSM900/1800/1900MHz bands. The Nokia 5100 is priced at 49,800 yen ($415 yen) while the Nokia 6610 is priced at 39,800 yen ($332 @ yen 120/$US 1). The handsets are available at Nokia stores and Nokia’s online sales web site, Club NOKIA.

The Nokia 5100 is targeted to active outdoor users with features such as enhanced water resistance, shock resistance, and a rubber body coating. It supports MMS, Java, GPRS, HSCSD and WAP. It is equipped with a 4,096 color display, FM radio tuner and IrDA port. It also features a flashlight, calorie counter, thermometer and sound meter, all of which are useful in outdoor settings. Its talk time is 2-5 hours and standby time is 150 – 300 hours. It measures 49.5 mm x 108.5 mm x 22 mm and weighs 104g. Although its body color is blue, the color can be changed with optional dark gray, red or green covers.

The Nokia 6610 is a triband handset, which supports MMS, Java, GPRS, HSCSD and WAP. Similarly to the 5100, it has a color display. It supports conversion function for currencies and temperatures.

The two new models will come with stereo earphones and microphone and a Japanese language manual. Nokia Japan’s press release with pictures of the handset is at: http://www.nokia.co.jp/company/release_030715.html [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications, a mobile handset joint venture between Sony and Ericsson, reported a loss for the period of April-June 2003. The sales in the second quarter 2003 amounted to 1125 million euro ($1,258.81 million @ euro 0.8937 /$US 1), which was up by forty percent from the previous period. The net loss for the period was improved to 88 million euro ($98.47 million). The loss for the previous period was 104 million euro ($116.37 million).

With an increased number of handset models, the company’s sales volume was up by 23 percent to 6.7 million handsets. As a result, the loss before taxes was 45 million euro ($50.35 million), significantly better than the loss before taxes for the previous quarter, 113 million euro ($126.44 million). Restructuring expenditures for withdrawal from the North American CDMA handset market and the cost of reorganizing its R&D activities in Munich worsened its after-tax loss.

Back in June 2003, Sony Ericsson announced the reorganization of its R&D facilities and more layoffs in addition to withdrawal from the North American CDMA handset market. The company hopes to go back into the black with increased sales and the effects of the restructuring efforts in the latter half 2003. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Palm of the U.S. announced on July 15, 2003 that Group Sense Ltd. (GSL) of Hong Kong will roll out a Palm OS based Smart Phone, Xplore G18, in China. Palm has been strengthening activities in China lately.

The Xplore G18 adopted Palm OS 4.1.2 and Motorola’s Dragonball VZ 33MHz. The GSM/GPRS Xplore incorporates a camera with a digital zoom function. It measures 10cm x 4.8 cm x 2.1 cm and weighs 105g. It is the lightest weight Palm-based Smart Phone handset.

It supports 100 hours of standby time and 2 hours to talk time. It features an infrared communication function. The Xplore model which supports handwriting input has 16MB of memory. The TFT LCD screen supports 176 x 240 dots and 256,000 colors.

Palm developed a Chinese language version Palm OS in December 2002. It announced license agreements with Group Sense and Legend Group. Palm set up a Beijing office in April 2003 and actively began promoting sales of self-branded PDAs. Pictures of the Xplore are available at: http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/333/C1833/ [M. Robertson, Portelligent]

Yano Research Institute, a Tokyo-based market research firm, has made a forecast for Japanese mobile handset shipments for the fiscal 2003 (April 2003 – March 2004). Yano forecasts that handset shipments to the Japanese market during the FY2003 will reach 44.41 million handsets, up 2.3 percent from the FY2002. It forecasts that camera-equipped handsets will account for 88.9 percent or 39.48 million handsets. In 2002, 43.395 million handsets were shipped to the Japanese market, which was down 4 percent from the previous fiscal year. In FY2002, 25.35 million handsets or 58.4 percent was camera-equipped.

The reason for handset shipment increases in the Japanese market, according to Yano, is that the replacement demand for camera handsets will grow because a larger variety of camera handsets will become available from different vendors. Yano forecasts mega pixel camera handsets will account for 43 percent of the camera handsets (17 million units) in FY2003. As of now, four models of mega pixel camera handsets are available from NTT DoCoMo, one from au and one from J-Phone. Along with the popularity of camera handsets, demand for memory cards such as the miniSD card, is expected to rise as a storage media for captured images and video.

According to Yano, shipment share breakdown of handset manufacturers in FY2002 was NEC (19.2 percent), Panasonic Mobile Communications (16.9 percent), Sharp (11.7 percent), Toshiba (9.7 percent), Fujitsu (8.4 percent), Mitsubishi Electric (7.3percent), Sanyo Telecommunications (6.6 percent), Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (6.2 percent), Kyocera (5.6 percent), Casio (4.3 percent) and others (4.2 percent). Camera handset share breakdown in FY2002 was Sharp (19.4 percent), NEC (19.0 percent), and Toshiba (14.7 percent). Sharp, which had the overwhelming lead in camera handsets earlier, is now being followed closely by its rivals. [M. Robertson, Portelligent]