DoCoMo Blamed For Slow iMode Start

Despite having 50 million customers world-wide Australia’s version of mobile content service iMode has less than 50,000…”In order to hold on to the exclusive licence for iMode in Australia, Telstra is required by the technology’s owner, DoCoMo of Japan, to sign up one million subscribers within three years…The partnership with DoCoMo has been problematic because Telstra has to wait for the company, Japan’s second-largest mobile carrier, to sign off on everything from content to advertising…It is believed that Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo has criticised the marketing of iMode.” While that could be a problem Telstra — Australia’s incumbent and largest telco — has a history of failing in the mobile content market.
Meanwhile, the other three mobile services in Australia are signing up significant numbers of customers to their next-gen services: Vodafone Live has 400,000, Optus Zoo has close to one million “active” subscribers and Hutchison’s 3 has recruited 500,000. Even though iMode has only had a ‘soft’ launch in November you would expect them to have signed up more than the figures cited in the article.
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