TOKYO-Japanese operator J-Phone’s news that it has signed 1 million picture service users was overshadowed by a raid on its headquarters by the country’s Fair Trade Commission. The raid was reported to be due to J-Phone’s alleged violation of anti-monopoly laws relating to the “Sha-mail” picture service.
International press reports said the operator is suspected of preventing retailers from lowering the prices of its camera-mounted mobile phones, used for the Sha-mail service, amid a heated battle among the three Japanese cellular operators for picture service market share.
J-Phone introduced the Sha-mail service in March 2002 and has achieved the most popularity for the offering. Rivals NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Group also offer versions of photo services for their mobile subscribers. NTT DoCoMo dominates the market, but J-Phone has made market share gains with the new service, and nearly catching up with KDDI in terms of overall subscriber numbers. Both operators had just more than 13 million subscribers at end-September, while NTT DoCoMo had nearly 42.2 million customers.
J-Phone is backed by Vodafone Group plc. It plans to transition to the Vodafone brand name next year.
