NTT DoCoMo Inc. has revised upward its projection for domestic demand for mobile phones in 2010 in a sign that it is pinning high hopes on the popularity of phone functions in digital cameras, TV sets and refrigerators, company officials said Thursday.
Japan's dominant mobile phone service provider now expects domestic demand for mobile phones to total 570 million handsets in 2010, compared with its earlier projection of 360 million handsets, the officials said.
The upward revision largely reflects expectation of demand for mobile phone links to 90 million TV sets, 50 million digital still and video cameras and 40 million refrigerators in that year.
NTT DoCoMo expects the installation of mobile phone links in home electric appliances to pave the way for such items as intelligent refrigerators, which can download recipes and regional information and relay a list of contents to their owners.
It also anticipates use of mobile phone links for delivery services. to locate parcels during delivery with data transmitters contained inside.
"Mobile phone links will be collected after parcels are delivered for use in other parcels. If 30 million compact mobile phone links are used 100 times each a year, they could be used for about 3 billion parcels every year," an executive at NTT DoCoMo said.