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I-mode had problems with their service because of fast subscriber growth
PHS was draining profits
Cell phone and mobile industry have become saturated because of increase competition offering alternatives to I-mode, NTT needs to find a way to continue on top. •
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II. CONTEXT

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Subscribers growing faster than the network could handle without service problems in dense areas.
Didn’t plan ahead for popularity of I-Mode, resulting in the need to cram users into already crowded frequency spectrums Power of buyers & Substitutions were high because of increased competition offering alternative services to I-mode.
Need to figure out a way to lower this power- possibly adding more features that would be missed if switched to different product?
Need to figure out a new direction – international?
I-mode unique benefits: allowed paying for the amount of data received/sent– one up on WAP based services forced users to dial up an access provider– making them pay for the total time logged in. only competitor with this is J-Phone
“always on” allowing continuous emails and news updates at all times
HTML allowing way more information providers compared to competitors (Ezweb has 357 v I-mode 1,160 sites)
Menu bar placement bids for sites (another source of $$ from advertisements)
Billing system of information fees – they benefited from having complement features on their phone that customers could by low price.
Being the first developer of 3G they impressed customers where it was a new player- hints that their investments in
R&D paid off.
Introduction of P-doco opens new doors
Lacked in the email department, allowing the least amount of full characters compared to competitors
Was aligned with competition monthly usage fees
Significantly more number of users 4,467 M v 553,000 for DDI
Paging service decreasing dramatically in revenues from 1999 to 2000 probably due to cannibalization
NE DDI group & Jphone seem to be highest competitors with subscribers

IV. RECOMMENDATION & ACTION PLAN
• Introduce a new I-mode that has less features and can be offered at a lower price that could appeal to teen users that mostly used PHS- similar to Doccimo but focus on low cost strategy and offer it now that it wont be overshadowed by the introduction of I-mode
• Discontinue paging services considering the decrease in revenue and will save them money $$ in operating expenses
• Increase R&D for expanding on current network and data on possibility of international expansion
• NE DDI group & Jphone - competitors with subscribers -- make sure to capitalize on what NTT does better than them specifically- Promote benefits: Abundance of sites, pay per data not by time (compare to DDI with WAP dial up),
“always on” feature.
• Incorporate P-doco with cellphones, possibility for GPS function on phones.
• Improve of attributes that aren’t top of competitors- Ex; Email functions
With future innovations make sure to do R&D on how popular the product may be so they can account for the
1999 break up of NTT into a holding company, one long distance and two regional carriers- allowed NTT to • possibility of crowded networks and adjust accordingly – also implement plans for unsuccessful products or products expand into new internet-related services and become more technologically competitive with foreign carriers with its R&D – also established fair competitive environment for all carriers (but not really) with higher popularity than expected to avoid losing more $$ than need be (ex if consumers are turned off by
Even with mergers of other companies (Teleway and KDD) NTT controlled 95% off local access market congested networks or if product is a flop and should be taken off the market- implement benchmarks)