Nik,
> And, in case you have
> forgotten, KDDI as a whole, and including au, did quite poorly for
> some
> years after they merged in 2000. au didn't really gain their feet
> again
> until the end of 2003, and didn't really start going again until 2004.
Yes overall you are right of course but the details were a little
different then you remember: KDDI got going earlier
than 2004 - their market share started to increase already in 2002.
AU was losing money in 2002 after very small profits in 2000 and 2001,
only after that period did AU become solidly profitable.
In terms of subscriber number share, KDDI was losing share until
2002 while J-Phone/Vodafone was winning share until mid-2003.
From 2002/2003 the trend reversed and KDDI ( and Willcom a little
later)
were winning share and Vodafone/J-Phone (and DoCoMo) were losing share.
If you are interested, you can find all the detailed financial and
subscriber graphics in our reports (JCOMM report and KDDI report):
http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/kddi/
http://www.eurotechnology.com/store/softbank/
some of the graphics are also in our blogs:
http://www.eurotechnology.com/blog/
http://fasol.com/blog/
Gerhard
On 2007/02/15, at 6:52, Nik Frengle wrote:
> Gerhard,
> I said because the integration was done badly, not because there
> was any
> integration at all. KDDI was made up primarily of the old IDO and
> Kansai
> cellular groups, with Okinawa-cellular thrown in for good measure.
> They were
> all on the same system--PDC--when they were acquired by DDI. The
> migration
> away from PDC to CDMA was done after the integration. And, in case
> you have
> forgotten, KDDI as a whole, and including au, did quite poorly for
> some
> years after they merged in 2000. au didn't really gain their feet
> again
> until the end of 2003, and didn't really start going again until 2004.
> I agree, there were probably a lot of reasons, but having worked
> there, I
> can say pretty strongly that the bureaucracy in VF Japan, which all
> of the
> old timers I spoke to said hadn't been there when there were regional
> operators, really throttled our ability to bring innovative
> products to
> market, and to react very quickly. There was a lot of politics and
> infighting about who (meaning the guys from Kansai, Nagoya, or
> Tokyo, in
> most cases) got the plum jobs and dictated the direction. Tokyo
> came out on
> top, although Nagoya and Kansai were stronger in their regions.
> Late and
> patchy investment in 3G also contributed, as did handsets that weren't
> designed specifically for the Japanese market, and the reasons that
> many
> employees would point to. But to some extent those were the reasons
> that
> were more comfortable, because they laid the blame on the parent
> company and
> the foreigners rather than on the really steep challenge to
> actually doing
> anything new in the company.
> I don't know that there is one 'truth', because everyone has a
> different
> perspective. I have had time to think about it, and believe that
> poorly
> executed integration and organisation had a lot to do with the
> problems we
> had. I fully admit this is only one guy's view, and not even the
> guy who had
> the best seat in the house.
> -Nik
> On 2/14/07, Gerhard Fasol <fasol@eurotechnology.com> wrote:
>>
>> Just one more thought Nik,
>> it's all water down the river - however - thinking about it,
>> KDDI had a much bigger problem with multiple systems
>> and integration of different companies than J-Phone/Vodafone
>> ever had, if you think about it.
>>
>> Thinking about it, I think KDDI disproves the regional
>> integration theory.
>>
>> Gerhard
>>
>>
>> On 2007/02/14, at 19:18, Nik Frengle wrote:
>>
>>> Gerhard,
>>> On 2/14/07, Gerhard Fasol < fasol@eurotechnology.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> If it was so easy as you think - then Vodafone for example would
>>>> have
>>>> easily
>>>> succeeded in Japan etc.
>>>
>>>
>>> You have been tossing stones at Vodafone for quite a while, and
>>> some of the
>>> stones have hit close to a mark, but one thing to keep in mind:
>>> Vodafone
>>> Japan was 99% Japanese. I counted. Sure, there were lots of foreign
>>> managers
>>> at the top, and our former COO there in particular was that most
>>> venal of
>>> parachuted foreign manager, who is too arrogant to listen to anyone
>>> with
>>> local knowledge, takes decisions based on flawed and unworkable
>>> assumptions,
>>> and so on. No doubt. But at base the problems were not because the
>>> company
>>> was foreign but because the transition from 9 different regional
>>> companies
>>> in Japan to one central one was handled poorly, and led to a real
>>> issue with
>>> organisational initiative and innovation. There was way too much
>>> bureaucracy
>>> in the way of offering new services and doing the things that would
>>> have
>>> made Vodafone Japan more competitive, a bureaucracy that came about
>>> during
>>> consolidation. And that bureaucracy was nearly completely Japanese.
>>> J-Phone
>>> transitioned very poorly from a nimble and spunky loose
>>> conglomeration of
>>> companies in regions, able to respond very quickly to market
>>> conditions, and
>>> to release innovative products first, to a big clunky central
>>> company with
>>> too much bureaucracy. There were certainly other issues, and idiot
>>> foreigners played as great or greater a role in that as anyone
>>> else at
>>> Vodafone Japan, but my feeling is that it is simplistic, and simply
>>> misses
>>> the mark to blame Vodafone Japan's problems solely on foreigners not
>>> understanding the Japanese market.
>>>
>>> Best,
>>> Nik
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> This mail was sent to address fasol@eurotechnology.com
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>>> keitai-l/
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> This mail was sent to address nfrengle@gmail.com
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>> keitai-l/
>>
>>
>
>
>
> This mail was sent to address fasol@eurotechnology.com
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>
>
Received on Thu Feb 15 04:59:21 2007