Thu. 17th June, 2010 / 6:30pm

Current Mobile Market Trends — Opportunities for Japan

Speaker: Dr. Gerhard Fasol

CEO, Eurotechnology Japan KK

By most criteria, Japan has by the far the world’s most advanced mobile market. Our research shows that Japan currently has about 7 times more mobile phone 3G base stations than the UK. By 2012, Japan will have completely switched off all 2G mobile networks, and LTE will be on the way to mainstream.

The Japanese mobile-sector start-up SoftBank was built from scratch by Masayoshi Son into one of the world’s most successful mobile operators and media groups (it now includes Yahoo Japan). Japanese mobile operators are extremely profitable, allowing massive investments, the level of which shocked even Vodafone and NOKIA into departure from Japan.

But Japanese mobile-sector companies have generally not managed to build global businesses based on their local success. Some call this the “Galapagos effect”. Our speaker is the only non-Japanese on Japan’s “Post-Galapagos Committee” that has been working for the past year on ideas to overcome this, and leverage Japan’s local success into global business.

Dr. Gerhard Fasol graduated with a PhD in Physics from Cambridge University (Trinity College). He initially came to Japan in 1984 to help establish NTT’s first international R&D cooperation, and has been working with Japan’s high-tech sector ever since. A leading European expert on Japan, entrepreneur, and founder of Eurotechnology Japan KK, he has worked with more than 100 investment fund managers and with many corporations on Japan business development and acquisitions.

Date: Thursday, 17th June
Time: 18:30 open, 19:00 start, 20:30 end.
Venue: Beacon Communications, 11F JR Tokyu Meguro Building (Tokyu-line Meguro Station), 3-1-1 Kami-Osaki, Shinagawa-ku. Map: PDF
Cost*: ¥4,000 ICA members,
¥6,000 non-members. Open to All.
*Pizza and drinks included.

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