>...the Japanese market is in economic terms less mature than the European
>market. In Japan, Voda is still fighting for market share (hence subsidies)
>in Europe they are fighting for profitability as >they have already won
>their market share by and large.
Well, what do we really mean with mature markets? If we're talking high
penetration of mobile phones, yes, Europe is more mature, still room for
growth in Japan, hence subsidies make more sense there.
But when we're talking mobile data, Japan is mature, Europe is not. So I
would like to argue it makes sense for European operators to keep
subsidising new technology (WAP over GPRS etc), not for the sake of market
share primarily, but to provide incentive for users to switch to the latest
data-enabled phones - and start using data. Vodafone wants 25% of revenue to
come from data in 2004 - they got a loooong way to go...
Cheers,
Daniel Helmer
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Received on Mon Jun 17 10:36:26 2002