Sprint lost 465,000 retail post-paid subscribers overall and saw its loss widen thanks to costs associated with shutting down its Nextel business. On a somewhat positive note Sprint is attracting new customers with the iPhone, the carriers said its iPhone sales were approximately 1.5 million — with 40 percent going to new customers. However, AT&T said it had activated 4.7 million iPhones during its third quarter call on Wednesday.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Susan Law Cain

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SoftBank is acquiring the stake in part to take advantage of Sprint’s spectrum — the nation’s No. 3 carrier is in the midst of a nationwide LTE deployment — as well as to advance SoftBank’s own growth in the saturated Japanese market. And Sprint needs the cash. The company has made bet after bet that haven’t panned out — from the ill-fated Nextel acquisition to the all-in investment on the iPhone.

The deal will consist of $8 billion in cash for Sprint and $12.1 billion paid to Sprint shareholders. It’s expected to close during the middle of 2013 pending regulatory approval. Sprint has upwards of $21 billion in debt with some of that maturing next year. However, buying a stake in Sprint as a means to pay down debt it a pretty crappy use of cash, so one hopes that Sprint will use of the dollars to acquire spectrum — either through consolidating more control over Clearwire, or perhaps in an upcoming spectrum auction.

So the deal is a positive for Sprint, and perhaps might help SoftBank by giving it a foothold in the U.S. market, but it raises several questions about the state of mobile play in the U.S. While this deal addresses Sprint’s need for cash, it doesn’t address a fundamental question for the U.S. market– namely does it need four nationwide carriers?

As of 2011 when AT&T was proposing its T-Mobile buy, the U.S. was one of the most competitive markets. Is that sustainable?

Also this month, T-Mobile said it would acquire Metro PCS, a pre-paid provider for $1.5 billion, after T-Mobile failed to close an earlier merger with AT&T. At the heart of these ownership struggles is the cold hard fact that the U.S. market is dominated by AT&T and Verizon and those players have carved out a huge spectrum advantage. They also own much of the backhaul network that connects cell towers back to the internet, which means that both Sprint and T-Mobile have to pay their mobile rivals for fiber backhaul.

So for the last two years, we’ve had to endure any number of possible combinations that would bring the U.S. carriers down to what some analysts view as a more rational number. There have been rumors of T-Mobile and Sprint getting together. Variations on those two buying Leap Wireless or Metro PCS and the aforementioned AT&T and T-Mobile deal.

With this deal and the T-Mobile acquisition of Metro PCS, we’re no closer to getting the U.S. market to three operators, so the real question after this deal, is still going to be whether the U.S. can support four operators as the need for network investment and spectrum escalates to meet our demand for mobile data.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Susan Law Cain

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UPDATE: Sprint has confirmed in a statement that it is in talks with SoftBank about a substantial investment that could yield control to the Japanese carrier: “Although there can be no assurances that these discussions will result in any transaction or on what terms any transaction may occur, such a transaction could involve a change of control of Sprint. Sprint does not intend to comment further unless and until an agreement is reached.” (Original stories continues below)

Japanese newspaper Nikkei said that SoftBank is looking to spend more than 1.5 trillion yen ($19.2 billion) to gain two-thirds of Sprint’s stock. Another report in the Wall Street Journal, quoting a source close to the situation, said that SoftBank was willing to spend more than 1 trillion yen ($12.8 billion) to buy Sprint. Japanese broadcaster NHK also said that SoftBank was looking to buy two-thirds of Sprint at a price that could exceed 1 trillion yen. Reuters also has a similar story based on a source with “direct knowledge,” of the situation.

It’s unclear if all of these stories are being leaked by one person. The deal, if confirmed, would be another shakeup for the US cellular market after T-Mobile and MetroPCS announced their intention to merge. Sprint was seen as a potential loser in that deal. But if SoftBank buys it, it could have a better chance of competing in the US.

Softbank has been growing fast and recently purchased a smaller Japanese carrier called eAccess for $1.8 billion. It took over Vodafone’s Japan business in 2006. It is reportedly looking to use economies of scale to pay less for devices and networking equipment.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Susan Law Cain

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By pressing a dedicated button, users can measure radiation and track it on a map. The phone comes in eight different colors.

The move shows just how commonplace radiation fears have become in certain parts of Japan, and also spotlights how everyday Japanese are opting for a sort of grassroots style system for making sure their food, water and environment are safe. There was widespread distrust of government radiation data in the wake of Fukushima and many Japanese citizens have started doing their own measurements.

In the same vein, Xbox hacker and co-founder of the Chumby project, Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, designed an open-source Geiger counter for Japanese citizens earlier this year. Huang designed the Geiger counter to be “suitable for everyday civilian use,” affordable, intuitive, easy to use and “sufficiently stylish.”

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The partnership should give a big boost to PayPal, which is launching PayPal Here in Japan after rolling out the service in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. Softbank has 29 million mobile subscribers and also enjoys distribution through thousands of retail outlets. While PayPal has spread to 190 markets including Japan, the company said it saw an opportunity to bring a small business payment tool to Japan, which has low credit card penetration. The two companies believe they can make a big dent in Japan’s retail market, which is worth $1.7 trillion dollars and has 4.7 million small businesses.

“We are very excited to support the growth of small businesses and empower anyone to be an entrepreneur with the launch of PayPal Here in Japan, one of the most advanced mobile markets in the world yet one where cash is still used for many transactions,” said Mr. David Marcus, President of PayPal in a statement. “By partnering with a fast-growing mobile Internet leader like Softbank, we can bring our innovative, secure online and mobile payment solutions to market faster and at greater scale across Japan.”

The PayPal Here service, a competitor to Square, allows merchants to take credit card payments through a mobile reader along with other forms of payment. PayPal Here also includes a mobile app that allows merchants to manage their business. PayPal Here can get people up and running quickly without having to wait for a merchant account. Japanese merchants will pay a transaction fee of 5 percent on card swipes for Visa, MasterCard and American Express. The service will also give merchants a way to handle online payments. This could be attractive for small businesses, which make up 99 percent of all businesses in Japan. PayPal has already signed up more than 200,000 merchants for its payment tool.

The reader and app is available now immediately for iPhone users and the Android version will be available in the coming weeks. The launch of PayPal Here in Japan shows how PayPal is using its heft to expand quickly around the world with its mobile payment tool. It also highlights the challenge for Square, which is still just based in the U.S.

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Kyocera, a long-time solar panel maker, will band tougher with IHI and Mizuho Corporate Bank to work on not only the 70 MW project but also other solar power plants as well. The project is estimated to cost about 25 billion in yen ($309.6 million) and is supposed to go under construction in July this year.

Last August, the Japanese government passed a law to create the incentive program that will require utilities to buy various sources of renewable energy, including solar, wind and geothermal, under long-term contracts. Japan has historically been quite supportive of solar and wind energy development, but in recent years other countries that have offered more generous subsidies have surpassed Japan in clean power installations. The country already has some of the world’s largest solar panel makers, including Panasonic, Sharp and Solar Frontier (part of Showa Shell).

The new incentive program, which will require utilities to buy renewable energy at premium prices, could create quite a boom for solar and wind project developers and manufacturers, said market research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance. In fact, under the current pricing proposal, solar project developers could get equity returns as high as 44 percent and add 10 GW of new solar power by 2014, the market research firm said last month. The returns could reach as high as 51 percent for wind projects.

Here’d a list of some of the solar projects that have been proposed or completed in Japan in the past year:

Photo courtesy of Solar Frontier

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Brad Hunstable shows off Ustream's Honeycomb app

Updated. So now we know why Ustream has been busy raising new funding from Korea Telecom and existing investors DCM and Softbank, and possibly why former CEO John Ham recently stepped down: The company collected less than half of the $75 million funding round it announced in early 2010, according to an SEC filing released Friday. [Hat tip to Business Insider.]

A quick recap: Last February, Ustream raised a strategic funding round led by Japanese mobile phone and Internet operator Softbank that altogether was worth up to $75 million. Softbank put in $20 million in an initial investment, taking a 13.7 percent stake in Ustream that valued the company at around $150 million. Softbank had 18 months to invest up to $55 million more, which would have given it a majority stake in the live streaming company.

But those funds never came.

The SEC filing indicates Ustream brought in about $33 million of the $75 million that it hoped to raise from Softbank, and Softbank never took a controlling stake in the firm. Instead, the startup announced a $10 million investment from Korea Telecom and an agreement to launch Ustream Korea as part of its Ustream Asia joint venture. Later, DCM and Softbank put another $6 million into Ustream and former CEO Ham stepped down.

Assuming the Korea Telecom and following DCM/Softbank investments are separate from Ustream’s $33 million Series B round, the company has raised a total of about $62 million. That’s not too shabby, but it’s far from the “more than $100 million” that continues to be quoted as Ustream’s total funding raised to date. It also answers the question of why Ustream needed to raise more cash just a year after the Softbank funding was announced: It didn’t burn through $75 million; it just never received the bulk of those funds.

The SEC filing also indicates a softening of Softbank’s strategic interest in Ustream. After all, rather than invest another $55 million of its own cash to take control of the live streaming startup, Softbank pursued a strategy of bringing in an additional shareholder to fund expansion instead. So what does Softbank know that we don’t?

Ustream did not respond to a request for comment by the time of this writing. We’ll update if we hear back from the company.

Update: Ustream CEO Brad Hunstable confirmed that its total funding to date is about $62 million, and gave some more background on the funding plans. He said that the primary reason for bringing on Korea Telecom was to have a strategic local partner on board, in the same way that Softbank is providing local support in Japan.

“We have the capital we need,” Hunstable said. As for its relationship with Softbank and the joint venture around Ustream Japan: “We continue to have big plans for Ustream Japan… It’s taking off and continues to grow month-over-month.”

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Nikkei Business Online (via TechCrunch) is the source of the report, and also notes that the iPhone 5 will support CDMA as well as GSM, which could open up the possibility that NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile carrier, might also be able to get in on the action sometime down the road. Japan is one of the last major markets where iPhone availability is still limited to one carrier. China, another lucrative market where that’s currently the case, also seems to be on the verge of entering a partnership with a second provider.

A growing trend

Early this year, Apple opened up iPhone sales to a second provider in the U.S. when it introduced the CDMA iPhone 4 on Verizon’s  network. It also started selling the iPhone 4 factory unlocked, so iPhone buyers could take their business (albeit minus 3G speeds) to T-Mobile, which it turns out has a very high number of customers using Apple’s smartphone.

Apple’s trajectory with exclusivity reflects a very smart and elaborate plan which helped make the iPhone the success it is today, and now that exclusive carrier deals are ending, Apple stands ready to reap the rewards it has sown.

Why exclusivity used to matter

In the beginning, exclusivity served to help Apple gain concessions from cellular providers it might otherwise not have been able to negotiate; the iPhone carries no on-device carrier branding, unlike most other phones, and also doesn’t come with a lot of pre-installed bloatware from network operators, the way most non-iOS phones do. Apple essentially cut carriers out of the software and services side of the equation, and even though it had its marquee brand and the success of the iPod backing up the potential success of an iPhone, it wasn’t necessarily a “sure thing.”

Aside from appeasing carriers, exclusivity also made it easier for Apple to guarantee a uniform experience across all its iPhone devices in the early days, but more importantly, it helped promote an air of scarcity around the phone. The iPhone is by no means a limited edition collectible, and Apple was doubtless happy to sell as many as it could produce, but making it available on only one carrier at launch helped it feel like a rarity without any artificial limitations on production numbers.

Why exclusivity no longer matters

But exclusivity has exhausted its early usefulness. Carriers no longer need convincing that Apple’s model can be lucrative for them, even if it does mediate their relationship with customers to some extent. Apple doesn’t need to make concessions to negotiate with carriers anymore; if anything, the reverse is true.

Also, the illusion of scarcity is no longer necessary to make Apple’s products appealing in the eyes of buyers; even after more than a year since introduction, the iPhone 4 is the highest selling Apple smartphone in the U.S. and iPhone owners are the most likely to stay with their handset maker more of any smartphone buyers.

On the flip side, ending exclusivity across most major markets opens Apple’s business to a huge number of new potential customers. Android devices are available in more markets and on more networks than Apple’s iPhone. Anything that helps narrow that gap should help Apple win back market share from Google’s mobile OS.

The staged ending of exclusivity also means that Apple effectively gets a brand new launch every few years. An iPhone might not be totally new anymore, but it’s new to a network’s subscribers if an exclusivity deal was previously in place on a competing network. That will help it appear more attractive to customers tied to their carrier who’ve been watching and waiting as their friends on other networks had all the fun. Restricted access breeds interest; Apple likely anticipated that when it penned the original iPhone exclusivity deals with AT&T and others around the world.

Everybody wins

In the end, we all benefit from Apple’s approach to exclusivity. Consumers get a pure iPhone experience, mostly unadulterated by carrier demands, software and restrictions. Apple gets more control over its product, and a staged global rollout of its handset that keeps momentum rolling in its favor. Carriers, too, benefit. Even those that suffered as rivals rode the early success of the iPhone now get a chance to steal some of that thunder at the expense of their competitors; Verizon has AT&T’s history of sub-par iPhone service in major urban areas to parlay into switched subscribers, for instance.

The iPhone 5 will be a massive hit when it arrives (most likely next month), but if it also comes with expanded availability thanks to the continued erosion of exclusivity deals with carriers worldwide (and at home in the U.S., too), sales of Apple’s latest smartphone should easily smash previous records. This is definitely the one to watch.

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This is by far the biggest mobile investment of the year in the mobile sector, and one of the largest VC deals overall in 2011.

The money will come to InMobi in two tranches, the company says: $100 million this month, and another $100 million in April 2012.

InMobi says that it will stay fully independent throughout — although funding like this will help it massively in its bid to compete with the Googles and Apples of the world — as well as the larger independents like Millennial Media — as it has never done before. The company says it currently gets around 47 billion ad impressions monthly — about half of what its biggest independent competitor, Millennial, gets.

The money will be used to hire more people in four key areas where InMobi has been operating: North America, China, Korea and Europe. And it will, of course, be used for more acquisitions and for R&D, specifically in areas of new technology like mobile payments, rich-media advertising on the HTML5 platform and ad distribution (building on InMobi’s recent acquisition of Sprout).

It looks like Softbank is the only investor in this current round. Existing investors included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures.

Softbank’s interest in the company is two-fold:

The Japanese group keeps a strong portfolio of VC investments in promising companies worldwide (one of the most recent investments was in the shopping site Gilt, for $62.5 million).

But it also has its own mobile and internet operations in its home market — these include a mobile service that was formed from its acquisition of Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) Japan (only just completed towards the end of 2010); and its longstanding broadband and Internet venture in the country with Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) — although there have been questions about whether Yahoo intends to stay involved, which are likely to be renewed again now with the CEO change at Yahoo.

As it is with the rest of the world, the mobile advertising market is just kicking off in Japan: companies like Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) only ventured into the market last year (in a JV with Dentsu). According to figures from Gartner, Japan and the rest of Asia will account for nearly half of all mobile advertising revenues in 2011, or $1.6 billion.

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