DoCoMo Camera Phone Shipments Soar; J-Phone's Sha-mail MMS Service Claims 6 Million Handsets

Shipments for NTT DoCoMo's camera-equipped smart phones have soared with more than one million units sent since the carrier launched its new MMS service in June. After watching competitors, especially J-Phone, release camera-equipped mobile phones and threaten its dominant position, DoCoMo launched its own MMS service on June 1. J-Phone's Sha-mail service is currently the dominant mobile picture service in Japan.

J-Phone's Sha-mail MMS service claims six million handsets
Japanese carrier J-Phone recently claimed that it has six million Sha-mail handsets in that country's mobile market. Sha-mail is J-Phone's MMS messaging service (and the first real success for picture messaging). Sha-mail's growth has been impressive, with J-Phone signing up one million new users in just the last two months alone. Sha-mail users now account for 47 percent of the carrier's subscriber base. J-Phone launched Sha-mail in June 2001 and the service is quickly beginning to rival NTT DoCoMo's i-mode mobile Internet service as the next "hot thing" for the mobile Internet. In contrast, DoCoMo's new 3G service, FOMA, has met with lukewarm response, failing to attract new customers in the numbers DoCoMo had hoped for. Most analysts credit J-Phone's wide selection of Sha-mail-ready handsets for the service's rapid success.

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