Sony to develop Walkman brand cell phone
TOKYO --Sony Ericsson will offer in Japan a Walkman cell phone next month that will enable users to download music onto their handsets in a partnership with No. 2 mobile carrier KDDI, both sides said Monday.
Sony Ericsson, Sony Corp.'s mobile-phone joint venture with Sweden's LM Ericsson, already offers a Walkman phone that's a portable music player in other parts of the world.
But such a product is a first for the Japanese market, where more than 90 percent of the music downloads are carried out directly into cell phones, rather than personal computers.
Japan boasts one of the world's most sophisticated mobile phone markets, with millions of people using handsets to exchange e-mail, do Net restaurant searches, watch digital TV and play video games.
The handsets from Sony Ericsson will come with 1 gigabyte of built-in memory that's enough to store 630 songs, and will play for 30 hours straight, company officials said.
Sony Ericsson has already sold 5.5 million Walkman phones in the rest of the world, including the United States, since August last year, and hopes the handset will catch on in Japan as well.
Unlike those sold elsewhere, the Walkman phones in Japan will connect to a digital music store operated by KDDI Corp. called Listen Mobile Service, or Lismo, for downloading music and will also download tunes directly into the cell phone in a separate KDDI service called "chaku-uta" that's already popular in Japan.
KDDI leads the Japanese market in cell phones that download music, and 47 million songs have already been downloaded through the chaku-uta service. But in the mobile phone market, it trails Japan's top mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc., which has about a 60 percent market share.
Tokyo-based KDDI said it wanted to strengthen its music services to prepare for number portability expected in Japan by November, in which people will be able to switch carriers without changing phone numbers.
Competition is expected to intensify after Internet broadband company Softbank Corp. recently acquired the Japan unit of British mobile company Vodafone Group PLC.
Softbank is expected to offer new kinds of mobile services and even more attractive pricing soon. Japan's top business daily has reported Softbank is in talks with Apple Computer Inc., which sells the hit iPod music player, to tie up in cell phones for music downloads for the Japanese market. Softbank has declined comment.
Koji Otsuka, a KDDI official, said the Walkman phone was an important part of the company's defenses ahead of number portability.
"We want to offer a wide variety of products through our powerful brand collaboration with Sony," he said. "We are a brand that caters to music lovers."
The companies didn't give a pricing for the phones, saying they would be set by retailers.
Competition for users is so intense in Japan that some service provides sell phones for a little as 1 yen (less than 1 cent), hoping to cash in on the users monthly service and other fees.
It's unclear whether Sony Ericsson, which supplies handsets to KDDI rivals Softbank and NTT DoCoMo, will also offer Walkman phones through other carriers. KDDI didn't say the deal was exclusive.
