Why do Cybirds suddenly appear? The migration path of a mobile Internet company - Upfront - Company Profile

Japan, Inc., August, 2003 by Alex Stewart

PARADISE WEBB?

In a piece entitled "Five Hot Start Ups" featured in the September 2000 issue of J@pan Inc, this is what we said: "Cybird is the premier (and first mover) content provider for NTT's DoCoMo i-mode and other operator services. Cybird is also a trusted source from DoCoMo's point of view, which means other content providers wanting a prize spot on the small screen are well served by going through Cybird."

This was still pre-IPO, when latest reported sales were only [yen] 375 million. At the end of fiscal 2002, the company posted [yen] 6.9 billion sales. Now we understand why there was a bubble. Growth is coming from mobile commerce services, overseas expansion and business alliances.

A key factor in Cybird's success is its ability to secure license rights to popular characters and brands. Since the beginning of 2002, it has completed a flurry of such agreements. These include the mobile content rights to such popular characters as Spiderman. It also has an agreement with Lucasfilm for the exclusive rights to create and manage the distribution of Star Wars content to mobile devices in Japan. It can develop content based on such popular series characters as Yoda, Darth Vader and C-3PO, as well as theme songs, dialog and sound effects. That sounds pretty galactic. Change the name back to "Paradise Web?"