The deal will give Google a major platform with the 51 million Japanese cell phone users who are DoCoMo subscribers…
Tokyo — Search engine giant Google Inc. and Japan’s largest mobile operator “NTT DoCoMo Inc.,” formed an alliance to cooperate in Japan’s highly innovative mobile internet market, giving it access to 48 million new mobile Internet users in its push for overseas growth, the companies said Thursday in Tokyo.
“The search functions of Google, the largest internet search engine in the world, are to be integrated into DoCoMo’s “i-mode service,” which was founded in 1999.”
“In the future, i-mode users will find it easier to use Google services like Gmail or YouTube on their mobile phones.”
DoCoMo said the tie-up on Internet searches, e-mail and other services, will help it retain users in a competitive market and raise advertisement revenue while cutting development costs.
The two firms, which also plan to launch a Linux-based mobile handset in Japan, aim to reap joint advertising revenues of 10 billion yen “as soon as possible,” they said, without disclosing how they plan to split revenues.
“Japan’s mobile Internet services lead the world,” DoCoMo senior Vice President Takeshi Natsuno said at a news conference. “It is no wonder that big U.S. companies are paying attention to Japan.”
The companies said in a joint statement that Google search results would appear by default via the search portal available on DoCoMo i-mode handsets. i-mode is a mobile Internet service provided by DoCoMo. Through the partnership with Google, i-mode users will be served Google search results for mobile and PC web sites via i-mode portal search box.
In addition, keyword-based ads from Google’s AdWords advertising platform would also appear with results. Launch of the expanded search services is scheduled in spring 2008.
“The new search box will be placed on the top page of i-mode portal.”
Tokyo-based DoCoMo was in discussions with Google to pre-install Google Maps for Mobile on handsets. The companies were also working on adding other Google services, such as e-mail, YouTube video, and the ability to share and publish photos over the Web. In addition, Google would be set as the default start page on upcoming DoCoMo handsets with full-browser capabilities.
The alliance with Google is part of DoCoMo’s attempts to shore up declining sales and compete with Softbank Corp., whose Yahoo Japan Corp. affiliate helped the operator woo users. In November, DoCoMo doubled the number of handsets available that can download songs and movies 10 times faster than older models.
“We may have to reduce our data-service fees if competition intensifies,” Natsuno, told reporters at the meeting. “We want other revenue sources to offset that effect.”
Google has already partnered with Japan’s No. 2 mobile phone company KDDI Corp. DoCoMo and KDDI together control over 80 percent of Japan’s mobile market.
Cheaper data-transmission charges are prompting mobile operators to team up with search engines, rather than developing content on their own. Softbank Corp., the No. 3 mobile phone company, works with Yahoo Japan Corp, in which Softbank holds a 40 percent stake.
Japan was the birthplace of the mobile internet and, with its high level of innovation and demanding consumers; it was also the most widely developed market, Google vice president Omid Kordestani said.
Experts estimate that Japan is two or three years more advanced than Europe in mobile internet use, with considerably more business being done over the mobile phone in Japan.
A reason for the advanced state of mobile technology in Japan is that costs are much lower and the Japanese are willing to spend much more on their mobile telephones than Europeans.
“For example, the Japanese send four times as many text messages as Europeans.”
Under Thursday’s agreement, DoCoMo handsets will provide Google search results for mobile and PC Websites via the top-page of its Internet portal site.
DoCoMo and Google will also continue to study the possibility of bringing Android-based handsets to the Japanese market. Android was announced by the Open Handset Alliance last year.
DoCoMo has more than 51 million subscribers in Japan, which is more than half the number of mobile phone subscribers in the country. The company claims that 48 million of its customers access the Internet with their phones.
The new partnership between Google and NTT DoCoMo indicates a change in the way the Japanese mobile giant does business: previously it arranged all its own telecommunications services, from creating the infrastructure to setting up its own services, the Nikkei economics newspaper reported recently.
“New mobile phones in Japan will soon have Google technology like Google Maps available as a standard function.”
Google is the world’s largest search engine, but in Japan it is behind Yahoo Japan, which has 65% of the Japanese search market. Japan has more than 100 million people with mobile phones.
A partnership with DoCoMo, the nation’s biggest carrier, would pave the way for Mountain View, California-based Google to tap the operator’s 53.2 million customers.