KDDI handsets go to the movies - Brief Article

Japan, Inc., Nov, 2002

KDDI is out to get its share of the burgeoning market for cellphone handsets offering video. The company in September released handsets, one of which offers movie mail services. The A5301T handset from Toshiba can record video at about eight frames per second and can show video with sound for 15 seconds.

KDDI is Japan's leader in 3G phones at the moment and it has set itself a pretty lofty target of having 7 million 3G subscribers by the end of March. The company said it had 2 million subscribers as of August. The new movie service will probably give J-Phone a run for its money--J-Phone has sold more than half a million subscriptions to its Movie Shamail service since March and is the industry leader despite running its service on 2G technology. Movie Shamail runs video for five seconds, just one-third as long as KDDI's newest offering.

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