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DoCoMo looks overseas for handsets

1 hour, 29 minutes ago

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ft/20041130/bs_ft/96d0f7d242f611d9bea100000e2511c8

By Robert Budden in London

NTT DoCoMo (news - web sites), Japan's dominant mobile operator, is to start selling mobile phones from Nokia (news - web sites) and Motorola next year in a bid to reduce its reliance on local manufacturers.


The move marks a significant cultural shift for the mobile operator, which has traditionally bought mobile phones from Japanese handset makers such as NEC, Panasonic and Fujitsu.


Masao Nakamura, chief executive of DoCoMo, said the group had agreed to purchase a mobile phone from Motorola that would be targeted at business users. He said DoCoMo was also in advanced talks with Nokia to buy a 3G phone that would be sold to lower-spending users.


For Nokia and Motorola, which are experiencing increasing competition from Asian manufacturers across western Europe, the developments represent a chance for them to attack Asian handset makers in their home markets.


The deals with Nokia and Motorola come as DoCoMo signs up MMO, BT Group's former mobile arm,to license its i-modecontent services platform across MMO's operations in the UK, Germany and Ireland.


Under the agreement between the two companies, MMO will pay DoCoMo a sum upfront to license its technology, believed to be less than £5m ($9.5m), as well as an ongoing fee based on revenues from i-mode services.


But the deal appearsto have annoyed Dutchtelecoms operator KPNas it already has an exclusive agreement with DoCoMo to offer i-modein Germany.


KPN said yesterday that it was seeking discussions with DoCoMo on DoCoMo's deal with MMO.


"This is a jigsaw piece that doesn't fit," a spokesman for KPN said on Tuesday.


Peter Erskine, chief executive of MMO, said: "What we get from i-mode is a platform that really does work, access to a lot of contentand scale in the handset business."