Business | Telecoms
Japan mobile phone carrier teams up with Google
Japan's top mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo is partnering with Google to provide Internet searches and other services on the carrier's handsets.
- AP
- Published: 21:11 January 25, 2008
Tokyo: Japan's top mobile phone carrier NTT DoCoMo is partnering with Google to provide Internet searches and other services on the carrier's handsets.
The two companies are discussing offering Google's Map for Mobiles on Tokyo-based NTT DoCoMo's i-mode handsets, and plan to explore ways to make it easier for users to access Google's e-mail, YouTube and other services, they said in a statement.
NTT DoCoMo's i-mode technology is how its cell phones link to the Internet.
Google search results will appear on the handsets' search portal page starting this spring, a statement said. Keyword-based advertisements will also appear on search result pages through Google's AdWords advertising platform, it said.
DoCoMo is studying as well the possibility of introducing to the Japanese market handsets that will use Google's "Android" mobile software package, it said. Google's cell-phone operating system is expected to be available the second half of this year.
NTT DoCoMo had nearly 53 million subscribers and commanded more than half of Japan's mobile phone market at the end of September. It has struggled to add new users in recent months amid fierce competition from KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp., which have slashed rates and launched aggressive sales promotions.
For Google, the alliance will give the company better access to the Japanese search engine market, Japanese business daily the Nikkei said. Although Google is the world's leading search engine, in Japan it lags behind Yahoo Japan.
Mobile service subscriptions exceeded 100 million in Japan as of the end of last year, with some 70 million users accessing the web through their phones.
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