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To: kech who wrote (31387)	5/31/1999 10:33:00 PM
From: Ruffian	Respond to of 152472

This One Mentions The Q> WSJ May 31, 1999 Dow Jones Newswires DJ AWSJ: Heard On The Street In Tokyo: NTT DoCoMo Stks May Fall By PETER LANDERS Staff Reporter In a grim Japanese earnings season, even corporate standard-bearers like Toyota Motor and Matsushita Electric Industrial saw earnings fall sharply -- and reported little hope for growth in the current year. Amid the rubble, though, one company did stand out: NTT Mobile Communications Network, otherwise known as NTT DoCoMo. Japan's leading mobile-phone operator, DoCoMo saw its group profit rise 70% to 205 billion yen ($1.7 billion) as mobile-phone use in Japan surged. Many institutional investors, foreign and Japanese, have taken a shine to NTT DoCoMo shares. They see it as perhaps Japan's only trustworthy blue-chip stock, a company with a solid growth record and a good chance to keep up the pace. But be wary of this bandwagon, warn some investors and analysts. Despite its enviable record, NTT DoCoMo shares could hit the skids in a few years if the rapid growth some peters out, as some predict it will. "It's very defensive, good quality -- but does it have upside potential? I'm not so sure," says one Tokyo fund manager, who spoke about the shares only on the condition he not be identified. NTT DoCoMo started as the mobile-phone division of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, the former government phone monopoly that was privatized in 1985. Last October, DoCoMo shares were floated on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the largest-ever global public offering (even though NTT retained a 67.1% stake). NTT DoCoMo's offering share price was 3.9 million yen. It has risen steadily since the listing, closing Monday at 6.75 million yen, up 140,000 yen. That is slightly below the high for the year of 7.68 million yen. Fueling the rise: explosive growth in mobile-phone users in Japan, despite the country's recession. As of the end of April, Japan had 48 million mobile-phone subscribers -- 42 million for standard phones and six million for a slimmed-down type called Personal Handyphone System. Of those, nearly 26 million were NTT DoCoMo customers. But the growth can't continue forever. Japan's population is 127 million, and within a few years most potential customers will already have a mobile phone. What's more, rival mobile-phone companies are eating into NTT DoCoMo's dominant share of the market. While NTT DoCoMo has 57% of all subscribers, it took only 50% of new subscribers in April. Its rivals' weapon is CDMA One, a new mobile-phone standard based on technology (dubbed Code Division Multiple Access) developed by Qualcomm of the U.S. CDMA One offers better voice quality than the existing Japanese standard. Handsets sold by DoCoMo rivals IDO Corp. and DDI Cellular, a unit of DDI Corp., got off to a good start in April. At some point, NTT DoCoMo may have to cut prices to win back market share, says Akihiro Ito, a telecommunications analyst at Deutsche Securities. "It's the exact reverse of the position until now," with NTT DoCoMo able to charge a premium by offering superior service, Mr. Ito says. Not everyone worries that NTT DoCoMo can't keep up the pace. By early 2001 the company plans to offer "third-generation" phones better-suited to data transmission and other interactive services. Already NTT DoCoMo has started an "i-mode" service, enabling users to access the Internet, check their bank accounts and buy tickets with their portable phones. The service attracted 220,000 users in its first three months, and NTT DoCoMo says the number could increase to three million by next March. All those services mean more customer time on the phone and more profits for NTT DoCoMo. The company is looking to go further with its third-generation phones. In May it announced an agreement with Symbian, a maker of operating-system software for mobile communications devices, to cooperate in developing phones that can send images as well as text via e-mail. In the end, debate about the stock comes down to valuation. NTT DoCoMo's market capitalization -- the value of all shares outstanding -- stands at 12.8 trillion yen. Relative to profits, that makes NTT DoCoMo somewhat less valuable than peers in the U.S. and Europe. Kate Lye, a telecommunications analyst at Warburg Dillon Read in Tokyo, says that with the "substantial demand for data services," NTT DoCoMo is likely to match its peers' growth rate. She rates the stock a buy. But Mr. Ito of Deutsche Securities thinks European and American mobile-phone operators have much more room to grow. That makes NTT DoCoMo's current value -- which is about triple Sony's -- look high. Like most analysts, Mr. Ito doesn't recommend dumping NTT DoCoMo shares. But he warns that investors looking for a fast-growing issue should probably call elsewhere.

To: kech who wrote (31387)	5/31/1999 11:01:00 PM
From: JohnG	Respond to of 152472

Tom B.-Clearly Q has some access to the Palm OS because they will be using it for their Summer 1999 release of the PDQ phone which incorporates some version of a Palm Pilot. Ditto for Windows CE. The real question is whether they will have access to EPOC, the OS PSION ceeded to Symbian for 40% of the stock in the new company. The other owners of Symbian ( MOT, NOK, ERICY, and some others) are not exactly Q's buddys--in fact, many are downright hostile. So, given that EPOC is probably the best of the OS's, is Q somehow frozen out?? Probably wireless knowledge is devoted to CE. Apparently there are many complaints that MSFT made CE deliberately brain dead in some areas because wireless devices and PDA's pay so much less per unit than do computer box mfgrs. Supposedly MSFT realized they have stepped on their you know what and have a major rewrite comming out in the fall. Too afraid of loosing part of their "monopoly" to canibalize their own products I guess.