Japan’s Model of Mobile Ecosystem Success: The Case of NTT DoCoMo

This research looks at the adoption of Internet and mobile applications in the United States and Japan. It is the intent ofthis meta-exploratory study to examine factors of success with Japan’s mobile industry over the past decade. Takeshi Natsuno defined the ecosystem as a collection of roles in a collaborative balance. It is here that we began to search for the factors that have had an impact on the success of the mobile industry in Japan over the past two decades. It is the intent of this study to identify and discuss those factors to validate the ecosystem research model and to recommend its use for future research. We found the ecosystem model to be very robust as a model to discuss, categorize, and explain the mobile industry in Japan, leading us to a robust and explanatory push-pull investment model. It is intended that this model will be used for future research. We concluded in this research that risk-taking was the predominant factor influencing the success of the mobile ecosystem in Japan. We found in Japan a clear investment earlier in the process, as the first step in most cases, where mobile carriers, such as NTT DoCoMo, would partner with university labs to develop mobile applications, such as i-Mode and e-payment systems, and then mobile consumers would have new applications and functionality to adopt. The model is very powerful and can be considered for adoption in other countries and maybe for other ecosystems