(keitai-l) Re: keitais killing digital consumer cameras (Ore more) softly

From: Tom Hume <tom_at_futureplatforms.com>
Date: 12/23/03
Message-Id: <5CEC269E-3547-11D8-9138-000A95CE0FFE@futureplatforms.com>
On 22 Dec 2003, at 16:58, Gerhard Fasol wrote:

> Because an average pre-pay user in Europe spends about US$ 10/month,
> while an average mobile user in Japan spends about US$ 70-80/month,
> and some a lot more than that.

Comparing low-spending (i.e. prepay) European users to average-spending 
Japanese users doesn't seem to be entirely fair (UK ARPU averaged at 
$40 early this year iirc), but I get your point - thanks.

> So DoCoMo and KDDI and Vodafone (in Japan) have a lot more money in
> the kitty per user to subsidize nice handsets - especially for those
> users with high billing.

But these high billing users aren't unique to Japan, are they? And 
given that Japanese telcos have this pot of money from which they can 
subsidise advanced handset features, why choose to spend this on better 
quality cameras instead of other features, like faster processors for 
gaming, better video support, etc.? Particularly when these better 
quality cameraphones, some of which can't even transmit photos over 
mobile networks, don't generate any revenue for the network themselves?

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Received on Tue Dec 23 14:58:57 2003