DoCoMo Buys Into Tower Records

The Eurotechnology Newsletter has alerted me to the fact that NTT DoCoMo is following the lead of SK Telecom and buying into the music business…although in this case its a retail company rather than a label.
“DoCoMo will use a total investment of around YEN 10 Billion (approx US$ 100 million) to acquire 32.24% of Tower Records Japan’s shares from Nikko Principal Investments Japan Ltd, and additional shares in a third party allotment taking it’s stake to around 40%. Tower Records Japan plans an IPO, and DoCoMo apparently intents to keep a 33.4% controlling stake even after the IPO.”
Apparently DoCoMo thinks the two companies have synergy, and plans to promote mobile FeliCa wallet phones for payments as well as use the system for customer relationship management (CRM), reward points, and customer data collection for marketing purposes.
The newsletter also notes that Tower Records Japan is about to launch a Japanese joint venture with Napster and that half of the official content sales of i-mode is from mobile music… “we expect DoCoMo to become involved in online music distribution through Napster Japan”.
This deal differs from the apparent motive of Korea Telecom because DoCoMo is not just after a secure source of content for its mobile business — it’s also planning to use the deal to promote its mobile technology, which some people have suggested is going to be a bigger money spinner than i-mode…
Related stories:
DoCoMo To Buy Into Credit Card Company?
M-payment Powerhouse?

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