I'm a little surprised that nobody has pointed out the simple fact
that the carriers in Japan decide what specs go onto their handsets
and place the order with OEM's... and in the end many shoppers
(myself included) make a purchase decision based on that handset
Not the carrier..!!! So, of course they will subsidize the purchase
price in order to get the customer for a contract term of revenues.
Not having certain functions (like mega-pix cam.) is potentially a
significant comparative disadvantage, for a fairly low-cost to add
such features (even if they don't increase arpu) these carriers can
expect to attract new customers or at least reduce churn.
Merry Christmas to you and yours,
L. Cosh-Ishii
http://www.wirelesswatch.jp
Received on Wed Dec 24 13:47:31 2003