Mobile/Wireless
Masayoshi Son, president of Softbank Corporation, has started discussions with Jerry Yang about MicrosoftÆs proposed acquisition of Yahoo. Softbank owns a stake in Yahoo. Son declined to elaborate on his role in the talks or the possible outcome. He also denied he was thinking of making a counter offer to buy Yahoo but noted that Yahoo and Softbank have two important assets in common - Yahoo Japan and Chinese search engine Alibaba Group. Revenue related to Softbank's one-third stake in Alibaba was a major boost to its October-December profit, lifting it more than six-fold to Ñ46.73 billion ($438.8 million) from Ñ7.49 billion. Softbank booked a Ñ57 billion ($535.2 million) one-time gain from the listing of affiliate Alibaba.com in Hong Kong last year.
Internet
A new website will be launched by Japan's three major newspaper publishers: Nikkei, The Asahi Shimbun and The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings. The site will allow viewers to compare the content of their news in a bid to create new value and to increase their influence on the Internet. The move comes as the industry faces difficulties maintaining an extensive home delivery system, particularly in remote areas where the population is dwindling. Japan is one of the few developed nations to have seen only a slight drop in newspaper circulation over the past decade. The partnership, which plans to turn a profit through advertising, hopes to go into the black in its third year.
Sony will delay the Japan launch of Skype on PSP due to technical problems. The company said in January that it would start offering Skype software for downloading onto the latest PSP model, enabling PSP users to make free web-based phone calls to other PSP users and to users of PCs equipped with Skype software. However, Sony disclosed that a microphone it planned to start selling in Japan for the new service did not meet Skype specifications, forcing the delay.
Hardware
Microsoft will start selling a cheaper model of the Xbox 360 video-game machine in Japan to woo Japanese gamers. The entry-level offering goes on sale March 6 for about $260, which is about one-fifth less than the least expensive Xbox 360 in Japan. The stripped-down version went on sale in the US last year for $280. Microsoft has sold 17.7 million Xbox 360 machines worldwide, while Nintendo has already sold more than 20 million of its newer Wii machine and Sony has sold 10.5 million PlayStation 3 machines.
Toshiba Corporation is slashing the prices of its HD DVD format players by 40% to 50% as major Hollywood studios move to embrace Sony's Blu-ray format high definition DVDs. The price-cut took effect in January 2008 and is aimed at boosting the adoption of its next-generation DVD players by mainstream consumers after what it said was a successful fourth quarter in terms of unit sales. Toshiba's players will now start as low as $149, going up to $399 for the top-of-range player.
Media, Entertainment and Gaming
GONZO Rosso K.K., an online game operator within the GDH group, has closed a licensing deal to promote Korean online game NOSTALE in Malaysia and Singapore. The game will be published via its subsidiary GONZO ROSSO Malaysia following closed beta tests in mid-March. NOSTALE is a massively-multiplayer online roll-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Entwell that was first launched in Korea in 2006. Characters take players into the adventure-filled fantasy world of a fictional continent called Eastmile. The game has enjoyed international popularity through its launch in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Europe.
Capcom, which publishes the ôResident Evilö video games, has reported a 4.8% increase in sales for the nine months ended December 31, 2007 compared to the previous year. However, net income fell 18% to Ñ3.57 billion ($30.5 million) and operating profit declined 8.2% to Ñ6.1 billion. Sales of video games for Xbox 360, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's Wii, helped raise revenues in the game video unit by 23% to Ñ30.9 billion for the nine-month period and operating profit rose 38% percent to Ñ6.04 billion. Revenues from its game arcade operations dropped 0.5% to Ñ9.58 billion and operating profit in this business dropped 62% to Ñ573 million. Thanks to better-than-expected sales of game software, Capcom raised its full-year revenue and operating profit forecasts. Operating profit is now expected to rise 20% to Ñ11.5 billion, a 15% increase from its previous forecast and above the average estimate of Ñ11 billion by 17 analysts tracked by Bloomberg. Revenue is expected to increase by 9.5% to Ñ81.6 billion this year, beating the company's earlier target of Ñ78.0 billion and the Ñ79.6 billion forecast by analysts. Capcom left unchanged its forecast of a 5.9% improvement in net income to Ñ6.2 billion, citing a strengthening yen.
Korea
Internet
Naver is launching an IPTV service that includes the company's own real-time search function and a fully-fledged interactive web service via KT's MegaTV platform. The service will include Naver Instant Search, which allows users to use the search service while watching MegaTV, and the Naver Channel Service, which lets users confirm Naver's exclusive online TV portal through MegaTV's separate channel.
The launch of a Korean-language version of YouTube has failed to attract a significant increase in the number of users. This is the most recent example of how imported web services are struggling to compete against locally grown sites. It also reflects the image of Google, which owns YouTube, in Korea, where the firm has received government subsidies by promising to make contributions to the Korea IT industry. According to Rankey.com, an Internet traffic monitoring firm, the number of daily visitors to the YouTube English and YouTube Korean sites soared to 382,000 on January 23, the day the Korean version opened, which is more than three times its daily average. But the number began to ebb away the very next day and by January 31 was back to the normal level of 115,000.
Mobile/Wireless
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute claims to have developed a mobile communications technology that allows data transmission seven times faster than what is currently available. The technology, jointly developed by Samsung Electronics and KTF Corporation, is called the "3.9-generation" mobile communications technology, or 3.9G. It enables people to use various multimedia services at a high data rate of 30 megabits per second, while moving at a speed of up to 120km per hour. This development is expected to help Korea occupy a favourable position when the competition to standardise 4G starts.
Semiconductors
LG Philips LCD is planning to change its name and reshuffle its board as LG Electronics takes a leading role after stake sales by joint venture partner Philips. LG.Philips was expected to drop Philips from its name and appoint a new chief financial officer and vice president representing LG Electronics. The company will seek approval for the changes at its upcoming shareholders meeting on February 29, 2008.
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