Recently I got an unexpected request from a European company. “We need a mobile phone from a Japanese operator X or Y. It needs to be brand Z - the only one available globally - and SIM-free. Oh, one more thing: it must be able to open the USB Settings menu!”. While I’ve asked my staff in my earlier companies many times and in several APAC countries to act on similar internal requests, I’ve never done it by myself. So my first “intelligent” question was the one I hate most: “why?”. The answer was equally obvious: “We have a potential customer for our T&M system and they use the same Band 42 as is only used in Japan.”
OK, so this company is
making mobile network measurement systems and uses a commercial mobile as the
radio interface. I’m familiar with that situation. Their customer will buy
their product if they can make their product to work with their customer’s
network under construction. Thus, the mobile needs to have the same TD-LTE
frequency band - in this case B42 - but work with their customer’s SIM card.
Piece of cake, except. Japanese operators are not selling phones without a two
year contract. This European company doesn’t need a Japanese mobile contract
nor pay for it for two years. Neither do I.
Suddenly I started to
appreciate even more than before my engineering staff in my earlier companies.
For them this was every-now-and-then work, for me the first time 😱! While I knew the process, still I felt like
Madonna too-many-years-ago, “Like a Virgin”. Well, that’s why I’m here for - to
learn new tricks - so let’s get to it! First, where can I get Japanese operator
branded mobiles but SIM-free? Once that was cleared, then how to test them with
my competing operator’s SIM and see if the required USB Settings menu pops open
(this company must have had earlier experiences…). You see, these SIM-unlocked
phones without contracts are not sold in wholesale markets but one-at-a-time by
separate small companies or individuals. Accordingly, testing them is not so
easy when all sellers operate around Tokyo metropolitan area, each an hour away
from my desk. Eventually I made it and now I know how to do it without the pain
and only with the pleasure.
The finding stunned me: B42 deployment provides
especially European telecoms product companies remarkable new market
opportunities. First of all, the present B42 networks in North America are all
in Canada and there won’t be any new ones. Latin American networks are for
Brazil and Chile - Brazil being the most lucrative Latin American markets for
any company. Almost all of the African networks are in Nigeria - again the
African country you want to be in business.
Europeans also have a big
coming market in their backyard. On top of the only existing UK network, a
whopping 19 B42 networks are being planned! For B28 the situation is similar if
you are not in those target markets yet. Out of the 8 operating networks most
are in Taiwan and Philippines, the 14 in Latin America are in Brazil, Chile,
Peru and Panama. The three new ones will be dispersed around Africa.
But you need those
commercial mobiles to access these promised lands. Where from can you get such good quality products that make your
prototype work perfectly and your product perform better than the rest? Here
from Japan! Not made by Japanese companies but made for the Japanese market,
accepting only top quality. The phones are here - where’s your business 😄.
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Mika
Mäkinen is the founder of mikAdvance,
a consultancy helping foreign HiTech B2B companies to establish business and
sales channels in North East Asia. mikAdvance’s clients are typically providing
high-end, hardware-based solutions for mobile communications industry in the
global market and are looking for cost efficient sales expansion in the
demanding APAC markets.
Mika has been involved in APAC business since 1994,
first in heavy machinery and the past 15 years in ICT businesses. He’s been in
charge of various parts of APAC, having done most of his business in Japan (18
years resident), Korea (2 years resident), China (bi-monthly tours) and Taiwan
(quarterly tours). Also as a former President of the Finnish Chamber of Commerce in Japan (FCCJ)
and a member of Board of Governors of the European
(EU) Chamber of Commerce in Japan, he has become a bridge-builder between
the Eastern and Western business cultures and social networks.
