Victor Pikula wrote:
> 2) Analysts may have converted Y7000 and Y1700 (ARPU in Japan) into $70 and
> $17 themselves, after DoCoMo stated they would expect almost the same ARPU
> in America. This would lead to the same "Big Mac index" problem as stated
> above. Do these revenues seem reasonable to any of you? Here in Europe,
> they
> would only fit the "heavy business" type user, and I don't think DoCoMo is
> falling for *that* trap in rolling out i-mode in the US.
I think those numbers are unrealistic. In Japan, phone bills are
high because the basic monthly charge is high, and the basic monthly
charge is high because the companies fork out ~Y20k per new subscriber
to subsidize their phones and have to make the money back somehow.
In Europe, quite a few countries (eg. Finland) prohibit operator
subsidies on hardware, leading to expensive phones but cheaper bills.
In Finland, I pay about 300 mk (~Y5000) for a *year* of basic service.
Calls themselves cost roughly the same as here, although short calls
are cheaper and long calls more expensive in Japan. SMS and WAP are
way more expensive than e-mail/i-mode though.
It'll be interesting to see how i-mode works out elsewhere in the
world. I'm not very optimistic about Docomo's chances in the US,
but in Europe the model may very well be workable...
Cheers,
--
Jani PATOKALLIO / jpatokal@iki.fi / +81 90 7722 3557
Sanpo Laboratory, Mechano-Informatics Dept., University of Tokyo
ヤニ・パトカリオ / jani@sanpo.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp / 090 7722 3557
東京大学、工学系研究科、機械情報工学科、算法設計研究室
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Received on Fri Mar 23 06:13:39 2001