Japan has a new mobile phone service provider: Disney Mobile launched at the beginning of this month. They are a virtual network operator using Softbank's infrastructure (and also collaborate with Softbank in other ways, such as marketing, there are posters all over the place now). There used to be a Disney Mobile in America, but they failed and folded last year. In Japan they target women in their twenties and thirties rather than families with children in the US. This could actually work, Disney's various franchises are very popular in that demographic and they can also draw on an existing base of three million subscribers to their mobile content offerings (ring tones and such).

There have also been rumors that if the iPhone gets introduced in Japan, it would be on Disney Mobile. Unless this is going to be a non-exclusive deal, I do not think that this is a good match, seeing how Disney only targets a very specific market, and how both of these strong brands would probably not like to share the limelight with the other one. On the other, Steve Jobs is the biggest individual shareholder in Disney...

In any case, au sent me (completely unsolicited and for free) another three months' worth of pre-paid calling cards, so I am good until November now.