Disney to launch cell phone carrier services in Japan - report

TOKYO, Nov. 11, 2007 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- US media and entertainment giant Disney will launch cell phone carrier services in Japan early next year by leasing local telecommunications networks, a press report said Sunday.

The Japanese unit of Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DCQ) (NYSE:DIS) has reached a basic agreement with Japanese Internet and telecom conglomerate Softbank Corp to tie up in cell phone operations, the business daily Nikkei reported.

Under the deal, the US firm will lease telecom networks from a Softbank unit, Softbank Mobile Corp., and start providing nationwide service, the report said.

No officials were immediately available at the two firms to comment on the report.

Disney will also join forces with Softbank to develop handsets and consign their output to other companies, the report said.

It added that the new phones would be sold at Softbank Mobile's 2,400 sales outlets across Japan and Disney will aim to sign up more than one million subscribers.

Disney will use its famous characters in designing its handsets and offering its animated films for downloads exclusively to subscribers, the daily said.

Launching cell phone services in Japan requires a huge initial investment because it costs about one trillion yen (8.7 billion US dollars) to build a network of base stations, the daily said.

As a result, Japan's cell phone service market is almost completely monopolised by NTT DoCoMo (NYSE:DCM) , KDDI Corp and Softbank Mobile.
(Source money.cnn.com)