Turning the Mobile Multimedia Offer into an Ecosystem : The Nippon-Korean Pattern

While mobile data services in Europe have failed to trigger fresh growth in the mobile telecommunications market to-date, Japan and Korea are now considered the "champions" of mobile multimedia services. Through identification and analysis of success factors in these two countries, this paper seeks to determine whether there is a true "Nippon-Korean" model to explain the rapid and strong take-off of mobile data services among Japanese and Korean customers and if so, we look at whether the elements of this model are likely to be reproduced in Europe? By analysing the situation in these two countries, we also examine the reasons why Europe, world leader in mobile communications at the beginning of the 1990s, failed to achieve similar success as far as mobile data services are concerned. In conclusion, we synthesize Japanese and Korean success factors to assess the true elements of a model, taking into account the "positive externalities" for world mobile industries produced by the ability of Japanese and Korean mobile operators to transfer 3G from laboratories to the market. We also draw some lessons for the future delivery of services by European operators to their customers.