Fujitsu’s Approaches to Developing Smartphones Katsumi Takada Amid a paradigm shift from feature phones to smartphones, Fujitsu acquired the top market share in Japan as a vendor of mobile phones with its quick deployment of 11 smartphones for NTT DOCOMO, INC. and KDDI CORPORATION in 2011. While maintaining this strong domestic market position, Fujitsu is aiming to enter global markets in earnest with Raku-Raku SMART PHONEs in 2012. Fujitsu smartphones are founded on two of the company’s strengths. The first is the company’s technologies—its phones have the best features in the industry because they adopt the latest and fastest platform, they have leading radio technology, and they use Fujitsu’s unique technologies that it has cultivated so far, such as human perception technolo- gies for good visibility of displays, good audibility of phone calls, and comfortable touchscreen controls. The other is the company’s excellence in manufacturing within factories that are lo- cated in Japan. Furthermore, Fujitsu keeps improving its software development ability to use open-source technology which is necessary for smartphone platforms such as Android OS. This paper introduces Fujitsu’s smartphone strategy that utilizes these strengths and also its ap- proach to developing new markets. 1. Introduction number among all Japanese manufacturers, and ac- With the emergence of the iPhone and the iPad quired the top market share together with feature as a turning point, the mobile phone business is un- phones. dergoing a major paradigm shift from feature phones This paper presents the elemental technolo- to smartphones (including tablets) and the Japanese gies that form the basis of the features of Fujitsu mobile phone market is making a rapid shift to smart- smartphones whose domestic market share we have phones at a pace exceeding that of the worldwide successfully increased, approach to improving our market (Figure 1). development efficiency, and methods of production Smartphones are not only positioned as consumer innovation from the perspective of manufacturing. It products but also have a role of a ubiquitous front that also describes the development of new markets and supports a Human-Centric Intelligent Society. As a new possibility of business that makes use of smartphones group of products different from feature phones, their as a ubiquitous front. market is expected to expand. Fujitsu was quick to shift its focus to smartphones 2. Fujitsu’s smartphone strategy and has worked on development to establish a firm In response to changes in the business structure position, as it has enjoyed with feature phones. In ad- that result from the rapid shift to smartphones, we dition to the existing NTT DOCOMO, INC. (hereinafter have formulated three pillars for a business strategy DOCOMO) market, we entered the KDDI CORPORATION to further expand the mobile phone business in the (hereinafter KDDI) market in 2011 by integrating future. our mobile phone business with that of TOSHIBA 1) Strengthening of business in Japan CORPORATION (hereinafter TOSHIBA). We brought 11 In addition to the existing DOCOMO and KDDI smartphone models to market, which is the largest markets, we entered the SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp. 146 FUJITSU Sci. Tech. J., Vol. 49, No. 2, pp. 146–152 (April 2013) K. Takada: Fujitsu’s Approaches to Developing Smartphones 2489 4673 4747 4821 2500 5000 100 2293 4457 FP 318 2009 621 Ratio 1844 1001 2000 4000 93 90 FP 1164 000 units) 1922 1234 79 87 million units) 1500 3000 80 1273 SP 3922 1307 3700 1000 2000 3360 70 SP 999 818 2349 Tab + SP ratio (%) 1000 60 500 633 473 57 Shipment volume (10 Shipment volume (1 241 Tab 326 322 426 Tab 581 0 64 103 0 186 50 2011 2012 2013 2014 (FY) 2011 2012 2013 2014 (FY) (a) Worldwide (b) In Japan (Tab: tablet SP: smartphone FP: feature phone) Figure 1 Figure 1 Forecast for mobile phone market. Forecast for mobile phone market. (hereinafter SOFTBANK) market to firmly establish our including top performance operations achieved by fun- position in the Japanese market. damental technology and ultimate user-friendliness Specifically, we will launch a full line-up of models based on Fujitsu’s unique human-centric technology. including Raku-Raku SMART PHONEs in the DOCOMO On top of this are features which are added according market and actively propose products to other carri- to users’ preferences and usage situations as new value ers so that we can ensure a certain volume of sales, for the respective models. In this way, we have devel- thereby steadfastly maintaining our top share in the oped a wide range of products that meet diverse user domestic market. needs (Figure 2). 2) Full-scale entry to global market In FY 2011, we not only launched the ARROWS By targeting the senior market, we will enter our brand but also brought out a line-up of products that target markets with Raku-Raku SMART PHONEs in FY fill varying needs. They include high-end models that 2013, and we will gradually expand those markets. were among the first to support DOCOMO’s Xi service, At the same time, we will further cooperate with models for female users, thin and water-resistant mod- Fujitsu’s overseas bases so that we can enter the corpo- els, REGZA Phone, Disney-collaborated smartphone, rate market, which has the potential to expand in the high-speed WiMAX handset for KDDI and the world’s medium to long term. first model integrating Windows Phone 7.5, and they 3) Development of new markets as ubiquitous front have won praise from the market (Figure 3). In addition to business models with handsets 2) Industry’s top basic performance alone, we will aim to launch a handset-based new busi- We introduced a leading-edge platform before ness model by combining products with hardware and others and optimally customized it to Fujitsu’s pro- services. prietary hardware so as to achieve the industry’s top To that end, we will offer handsets that support performance. various applications in accordance with the expansion As hardware platforms, we have led the adoption of business areas as a ubiquitous front and work on of multi-core processors in Japan (dual-core in FY 2011 developing new markets. and quad-core in FY 2012) and achieved products with the smoothest operational feel in the industry. As soft- 3. Features of Fujitsu smartphones ware platforms, we have adopted Windows Phone 7.5 1) Wide variety of products for the first time in the world in addition to Android OS Fujitsu smartphones adopt three-tier architecture. to meet diverse user needs. Specifically, there are functions common to all models In the future, we intend to continue to quickly FUJITSU Sci. Tech. J., Vol. 49, No. 2 (April 2013) 147 K. Takada: Fujitsu’s Approaches to Developing Smartphones Creating values according to users’ preferences and usage situations Working to develop new functions, new technologies and new materials New values for respective models Human-centric Pursuit of Fujitsu’s proprietary technology technology Large and visible display, smooth operational feel and user-friendly UI Continuous improvement of basic performance of smartphones High-performance CPU, high-speed communication, Fundamental technology latest OS, and thin and water-resistant model Common to all models Figure 2 SmartphoneFigure architecture. 2 Smartphone architecture. First half Second half All-in-one, high-spec, F-05D water-resistant smartphone Ultra-slim, NEXT series F-07D water-resistant smartphone REGZA Phone Compact, REGZA Phone NTT F-12C water-resistant smartphone T-01D DOCOMO Water-resistant smartphone F-03D/Girls’ for women Disney Mobile on docomo Disney-collaborated with series F-08D smartphone World’s first water-resistant tablet F-01D LTE tablet REGZA Phone WiMAX, high-spec, REGZA Phone IS11T ISW11F water-resistant smartphone KDDI Windows Phone World’s first WP 7.5 ES Ultra-slim, IS12T smartphone IS12F water-resistant smartphone Figure 3 FY 2011 smartphone line-up. Figure 3 FY 2011 smartphone line-up. determine the industry trends and seek to adopt the second in the industry in terms of download traffi c latest platform of the age (Figure 4). speed (average of the values measured in three loca- 3) Product deployment centered on proprietary radio tions in Tokyo), which shows that consumers appreciate technology Fujitsu’s ability. A radio platform is used that brings together In the future, we intend to make use of soft- the world’s fi rst-class radio technologies that have ware-defi ned radio (SDR), a next-generation radio undergone continuous development since the fi rst- technology, to accommodate a wide variety of wireless generation FOMA handsets. In research conducted by systems for overseas markets while also deploying ITmedia1), ARROWS Z and ARROWS X placed fi rst and products in Japan (Figure 4). 148 FUJITSU Sci. Tech. J., Vol. 49, No. 2 (April 2013) K. Takada: Fujitsu’s Approaches to Developing Smartphones FY 2011 FY 2012 FY 2013 High end/Tablet Japan’s first Dual-core Japan’s first Quad-core Mid end Hardware Single-core Dual-core Low end Single-core Fujitsu’s proprietary radio technology Radio 3G Japan’s first LTE SDR Android OS Froyo GB ICS JB KLP Software Windows Phone OS WP7.5 World’s first WP8 Figure 4 PlatformFigure roadmap. 4 Platform roadmap. 4) Ultimate user-friendliness top-level image representation in Japan achieved by We offer ultimate user-friendliness that distin- the REGZA Engine and a variety of consumer electron- guishes us from our competitors by taking advantage ics linking functions by REGZA LINK, which have been of proprietary technologies such as displays with made available by business integration with TOSHIBA. good visibility, phones where the speaker’s voice is They also include Japan-specifi c functions (so-called very audible, comfortable touchscreen controls, and “Galapagos phone functions”) essential for feature peace of mind combined with convenience, which we phones including IR communication, One-seg broad- have cultivated with feature phones and Raku-Raku casting TV and Osaifu-Keitai as well as a function to link PHONEs.