The Eastern hemisphere of the mobile handset world stands in contrast with the West. In tech-focused Eastern countries like Japan and South Korea, heavy-duty wireless networks rule. Those networks aren't as robust or widely deployed in the West, where the dominant model focuses on handset features and budding application marketplaces.
The Asian cellular phone market is something of a paradox. Countries such as Japan and South Korea have invested the equivalent of billions of dollars to develop sophisticated, high-bandwidth wireless services, such as mobile video and mobile commerce
technologies. One reason for doing this was so they could lead the world in deployment of such services; however, other countries have been slow to follow that lead.
In terms of sophisticated cellular data services, Japan and South Korea are well ahead of their European and North American counterparts. In those countries, consumers rely heavily on their handsets. In Japan and Korea, the cell phone functions like a
laptop. Users surf the
Internet, purchase goods and watch TV on their handsets.
While mobile video and mobile commerce services have caught on in those countries, they have not been as popular elsewhere. Mobile commerce has started to take significant root in only a few European countries, and rich mobile television offerings remain a future rather than current capability in most areas.
The gulf between Asia and the rest of the world is not because carriers have not been tried to introduce such services to consumers. So, the question becomes: Why is there such a significant difference between these areas? Cultural components play a role. Certain technologies have simply appealed to Japanese users more than U.S. consumers. In addition, consumer desires are different. In South Korea and Japan, complexity is valued, so there are often multiple steps involved in order to complete transactions on their networks. In Europe and North America, efficiency is the focus: Users want to do things as quickly and with as little work as possible.
While the Asian companies have been at the forefront of low end systems, U.S. companies have in many ways been leading smart phone technical innovations. Google has also had a dramatic impact on smart phone features. The company has forced suppliers to change their development outlook. Traditionally, cell phone vendors concentrated on delivering proprietary systems with closed operating systems.
The current focus is on applications. Vendors are trying to develop ecosystems that will spawn new applications and drive more cellular network usage. Chances are that these applications will come from the U.S.
