The Six Immutable Laws of Mobile Business

FOREWORD

When you talk to managers in the Japanese automotive industry about their worst rival, it is often not another car manufacturer that is on their mind, but the mobile phone. Even before the 2008 world economic crisis, passenger car sales in Japan had been shrinking for years. According to an industry insider, one reason was because the vast majority of young men who used to spend significant sums of money on cars now prefer shelling out $100 or more per month for the voice and data services of their mobile companion.

This little anecdote shows that something quite extraordinary is going on in Japan. While physical mobility is taken for granted, the mobile phone is about to supersede the car as a symbol of freedom. The attraction is understandable. The car offered people in the analog age the dream of individual mobility—to go everywhere, whenever you liked. Whereas the mobile phone enables people of the digital age to communicate and to link with almost everything and everybody on this planet from anywhere anytime.

This process is happening first and foremost in Japan (and to some extent in South Korea), where the use and development of 3G handsets and mobile internet services is 2–3 years ahead of that in many other developed countries. Just imagine, 85% of the > 100 million mobile phone subscribers have already subscribed to 3G services. Several mobile services already boast > 10 million subscribers, and they are making money too. At the same time, online commerce is ...