NTT DoCoMo Considering American Launch Next Year

Online newspaper Japan Today reports that Japanese megacarrier NTT DoCoMo is considering launching services in the US next year as a full service virtual operator leasing network capacity from either AT&T or T-Mobile, as DoCoMo has business relationships with both carriers in the US via their DoCoMo USA subsidiary.

Currently, NTT DoCoMo has a subdued presence in the US with locations in New York and Hawaii meant for travelling Japanese tourists and businesspeople needing assistance with handsets and roaming capabilities, with the bulk of their US visibility being limited to tradeshows such as CTIA.

If DoCoMo is to launch service next year, its closest competitor would be KDDI America, which operates KDDI Mobile as a virtual operator on the Sprint network, offering rebranded Sprint phones and service tailored towards Japanese speaking tourists and residents.

If anything, it means we might get a fully working Eva cellphone that isn’t obscenely marked up, but the article doesn’t elaborate on whether DoCoMo would launch with their Japanese handset lineup or rely on smart devices from from HTC, Sharp and Toshiba as the company specifically mentions the success of the iPhone and smartphones in general during the recession in the US as their reasoning for entering the market.