difenbaker
03-07-2006, 08:26 AM
Vodafone looks set to throw in the towel in Japan
Tue Mar 7, 1:14 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - It may be the world's largest mobile telephone operator but Vodafone has had a dismal time in Japan ever since it arrived here five years ago. Now it looks set to admit defeat and sell up.
Vodafone's confirmation that it is in talks to sell its subsidiary here to local Internet and telecoms group Softbank comes as little surprise in Japan, one of the biggest but also most competitive cellphone markets in the world.
A sale would mark an end to two decades of aggressive global expansion by the British company, once a market darling at home but now under heavy pressure from major shareholders to reverse a decline in its fortunes.
Vodafone took a controlling stake in what was then Japan Telecom and its mobile subsidiary J-Phone in 2001.
It has lagged badly behind Japan's two existing operators, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, and the competition is set to get more fierce with the entry of three new operators recently awarded operating licences, including Softbank.
A distant third in Japan's mobile phone market, Vodafone has been struggling to reverse a decline in subscribers caused in part by its botched rollout of third-generation (3G) services which suffered frequent disruptions.
The company's handsets also failed to win over Japan's notoriously finicky consumers and it found itself up against the latest mobile technologies.
"Vodafone made a slow start in investing in building the 3G infrastructure. It's working on it now but still it's not enough yet," said Daisaku Masuno, a telecom analyst at Nomura Holdings.
more here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060307/bs_afp/japanbritaintelecomcompanytakeovervodafonesoftbank ;_ylt=Ave6.MdCYKnuqMvSEpC0VQf67rEF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMH VqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--
cheers!
Tue Mar 7, 1:14 AM ET
TOKYO (AFP) - It may be the world's largest mobile telephone operator but Vodafone has had a dismal time in Japan ever since it arrived here five years ago. Now it looks set to admit defeat and sell up.
Vodafone's confirmation that it is in talks to sell its subsidiary here to local Internet and telecoms group Softbank comes as little surprise in Japan, one of the biggest but also most competitive cellphone markets in the world.
A sale would mark an end to two decades of aggressive global expansion by the British company, once a market darling at home but now under heavy pressure from major shareholders to reverse a decline in its fortunes.
Vodafone took a controlling stake in what was then Japan Telecom and its mobile subsidiary J-Phone in 2001.
It has lagged badly behind Japan's two existing operators, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI, and the competition is set to get more fierce with the entry of three new operators recently awarded operating licences, including Softbank.
A distant third in Japan's mobile phone market, Vodafone has been struggling to reverse a decline in subscribers caused in part by its botched rollout of third-generation (3G) services which suffered frequent disruptions.
The company's handsets also failed to win over Japan's notoriously finicky consumers and it found itself up against the latest mobile technologies.
"Vodafone made a slow start in investing in building the 3G infrastructure. It's working on it now but still it's not enough yet," said Daisaku Masuno, a telecom analyst at Nomura Holdings.
more here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060307/bs_afp/japanbritaintelecomcompanytakeovervodafonesoftbank ;_ylt=Ave6.MdCYKnuqMvSEpC0VQf67rEF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMH VqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--
cheers!