Japanese mobile giant NTT DoCoMo announced a $45 million investment in PacketVideo, which DoCoMo said will facilitate the efficient joint development of PacketVideos technologies and bolster the competitive edge of both companies.
Japans predominant mobile phone operator, NTT DoCoMo,
announced a partnership with U.S.-based wireless and digital home multimedia
software and service firm PacketVideo that will see DoCoMo take a 35 percent
stake in the company, a subsidiary of NextWave Wireless. DoCoMo said the
$45.5 million, all-cash transaction, effective immediately, is intended to
strengthen DoCoMos position in advanced music and video services in Japan.
The companies have had a partnership since 1998, enabling
PacketVideos technologies to be incorporated in multimedia applications for
DoCoMos FOMA 3G mobile network services. To date, PacketVideos CORE
multimedia player, pvPlayer, has been installed in more than 90 DoCoMo handset
models.
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Toshio Miki, associate senior vice president and managing
director of communication device development department for NTT DoCoMo, said
PacketVideo has been a key supplier of software to DoCoMo and has made
important contributions to the success of our services in the Japanese market.
We are pleased to become an equity partner of PacketVideo and are very
confident of the company's continued growth and long-term success, Miki said.
PacketVideo, formed in 1998, already counts Verizon Wireless
and Orange among its customers, as well as all top 10 handset manufacturers.
The companys three major product groups are CORE, which provides a universal
structure for mobile multimedia applications, MediaFusion, a white-label client-server
software application that enables users to develop and launch on-device portals
for rich media services, and PVConnect, which links mobile devices and home
entertainment devices.
We are honored to welcome DoCoMo as an investor. We are building
on our unique and highly successful relationship with DoCoMo to further
strengthen PacketVideos position in developing the best in class media
experience, regardless of format or platform, said PacketVideo CEO James
Brailean. PacketVideo is the global leader in delivering rich media solutions
for mobile operators, and DoCoMos support will enable us to accelerate our
innovation and growth.
DoCoMo, with more than 53 million customers as of March
2008, represents more than half of Japan's cellular market. The company
provides a wide variety of mobile multimedia services, including i-mode, which
provides e-mail and Internet access to more than 50 million subscribers, and Freedom
of Mobile Multimedia Access (FOMA), launched in 2001 as the world's first 3G
mobile service based on W-CDMA.
Earlier this month the company announced a mobile remittance
service that allows users on DoCoMo's i-mode mobile Internet service on the
FOMA 3G network to transfer money on their phones (up to $208) by inputting the
payee's mobile phone number.
