NXT has targeted mobile phones as a major potential market because conventional speakers take a lot of space, and its technology allows for the whole display screen to be used as a speaker. This means that during voice call, users do not have to position their ear canal over the speaker, as they do with conventional mobile phones. Instead, they can just place their ear to any part of the display screen.
The Toshiba V501T phone is to be sold by Vodafone KK in the Japanese market, and it is to be made by the Japanese electronics conglomerate Toshiba. It is not the first deal that Vodafone has with Toshiba. In March this year, it signed an agreement with Vodafone to produce 3G phones for it in the European market.
The news of the Toshiba agreement with Vodafone was somewhat surprisingly to most Westerners, unaware that Tokyo-based Toshiba has been in the mobile phone business for 15 years or so. However, its client base was in the Asia region (primarily Japan), and three of the four Japanese operators are Toshiba customers (KDDI, Vodafone Japan, and TuKa).
The Japanese market leader, NTT DoCoMo, has already launched a different phone in Japan that incorporates the NXT’s SoundVu technology. Indeed, the operator has already sold several hundred thousand these phones to its vast client base of 49 million customers.
Vodafone Japan meanwhile has a client base of 15 million customers and its flat panel phone is expected to be launched next month.
Vodafone already has an ongoing relationship with another Japanese vendor, Sharp, to make a number of 2.5G handsets for the Vodafone live! Service.
