(keitai-l) Faster adoption of 3 W-CDMA in Italy than DoCoMo FOMA in Japan

Looks like 3 W-CDMA in Italy is having a faster adoption
than FOMA in JP.

Here are the numbers in the news:

"To-date, Hutchison has signed up about 25,000 customers in
the UK and 90,000 in Italy"

http://www.pmn.co.uk/20030606three.shtml

So 3 has reached the same penetration that FOMA had in the
JP market in February 2003. The impressive fact is this was
achieved by just 3 months by 3 Italy versus the 17 months taken
by Ntt DoCoMo.

I think some errors made by Ntt DoCoMo are emerging...

Key differences in strategy that have helped 3 in Italy:

1 - Lower voice call costs than 2G competition
      (By the end this was a smart move)

2 - Roaming over GSM national voice coverage
     (DoCoMo only recently has launched a dual
      mode capable phone)

By know is an interesting picture even if these numbers do not
mean  that 3 will be able to survive to the competition from
TIM, Vodafone and Wind that will be introducing 3G services
by year's end.

Another dark point is that there is no content usage data
available from 3 Italy.

Can we now expect the EU market closing the gap with
JP in a short time?

I really want to see how the market will reacts to the
introduction of 3G by the major operators...

What do you think?

Giovanni

PS: KDDI has been more successful than FOMA with cdma2000 x1
but is this full 3G technology?

________________________________________________________
giovanni bertani   mobile vas consultant (giovanni.bertani@exsense.com)
exsense verona italy