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Japanese handset makers markedly contribute to global smartphone shipments

The Asia-Pacific region claimed 46% of smart mobile device shipments worldwide in Q1 2006, according to Canalys. Overall, the global shipments of smart mobile devices increased 55% from 1Q 2005. Japanese handset makers played an important role in the increased shipments of smartphones, making Symbian OS global share in smart mobile devices to reach new high of 69%.

“In addition to the shipment increases made by Nokia and RIM, Japanese vendors such as Mitsubishi and Sharp have achieved very high volumes of their new Symbian-based FOMA smart phones in Q1, catapulting them into the global top five. With increased shipments from Fujitsu, and a new device from Sony Ericsson, Symbian is enjoying not only significant Japanese market success, but also seeing record global market share,” said Canalys senior analyst and research manager Rachel Lashford.

Japanese phone users remain pragmatic

Japan.Internet.com and Cross Marketing conducted a survey of Japanese cellphone users, asking about the optional handset features they use most of all.

Without any surprise, email came first, with 98% of respondents sending and receiving emails via a cell phone. The camera’s second place was easily predictable and reasonable (62%), taking into the account the mass penetration of camera phones in Japan. However, the third place was occupied by a trivial and very pragmatic feature of the alarm clock (61.7%), followed by similarly pragmatic calculator (45.3%) and calendar (33.3%). Surprisingly, the heavily promoted features like MP3 player and mobile TV were lagging behind.

Walkman: old brand gets new life in mobile world

Sony Ericsson just announced its 1Q06 results, claiming it had sold 13.3 million handsets, among which 2.5 million were Walkman-branded phones. A year ago, the number of shipped phones was 9.4 million, but they did not have a Walkman-branded handset a year ago.

Obviously, the 42% increase of shipments can be attributed to the successful marketing of Walkman brand, which was almost forgotten, but luckily, it got a new life in the mobile world. Now, Sony Ericsson has a total of eight Walkman phone models announced or shipping.

The initial success of the Walkman phone made the company to develop a Cybershot imaging phone, which is going to hit markets in near future. What comes with the old brands is distinct differentiation for Sony Ericsson's handset portfolio -- a thing many handset vendors struggle to create. Can you tell me the dedicated music phone of Nokia without googling it first, for example? Motorola, which does not have the legacy of Sony brands, partnered with Apple to market iTunes phone, its dedicated music phone. When handsets offer the same pack of multimedia features it becomes extremely difficult for consumer to choose one. A handset's look (slim Razr) and well-known brand (Walkman) will play an important role in getting customers' attention along with the affordable pricing. So, what should we expect next from Sony Ericsson? Maybe, a Playstation phone?

Japan: PC vs. cellphone shipments

IDC Japan has recently released the number of PCs shipped in Japan in 2005. Surprisingly, the number increased by 9.1% YoY, totaling 14.61 million units. The research company explains the recovered demand (mostly in home PC market) by two factors:

• Interest in Olympic Games 2004
• Increased shipments by major PC vendors, which started selling “spring models” in December instead of January

Nevertheless, the PC shipments still lag behind cellphone shipments, which accounted for 45 million devices in 2005, according to Gartner. Moreover, “although the home PC demand was a driver in 2005, there is a gap between shrinking home PC and expanding business PC markets. Despite the declining growth, business PCs will remain strong with over 60% of Japan PC market," said Kumi Shingyouchi, senior market analyst of IDC Japan's Personal Computing and Digital Imaging. This means, that cellphones continue to be the main devices from which Japanese users access Internet.