NTT DoCoMo Inc. said Wednesday that it will release on Aug. 10 a cellular phone that can be used both in Japan and South Korea, based on a business tieup with local operator SK Telecom.
But the retailing price tag of the DoCoMo's first international dual-mode cellular is 203,200 yen, which reflects DoCoMo's isolation from the rest of the world in the current generation cellular services.
DoCoMo said it will also rent the dual roaming cellular for monthly charge of 6,600 yen.
DoCoMo's domestic rivals IDO Corp. and DDI Corp. have already offered similar roaming services in South Korea, Hong Kong and the United States, with the number of subscribers totaling 22,000 as of July, and will begin similar services in Australia later this month.
The two rival firms' international cellular phones are priced around 50,000 yen, and have been discounted to around 10,000 yen at retailing shops, according to officials of the companies.
IDO and DDI have adopted a cellular system called CdmaOne, which is widely used in the U.S. and Asia, allowing them to sell much cheaper cellular terminals, they said.
But DoCoMo's current PDC system is not compatible with systems widely used in Europe and North America, and DoCoMo has been struggling to spread its next-generation cellular system called W-CDMA in other countries.