EMOBILE: the mobile broadband revolutionist - Huawei

Now aided by very small, briefcase-sized radio units, you can even
hang the equipment on the wall. So the price to build is just one tenth of the
traditional base station, and we can build them very quickly.
fastest speed, Dr. Semmoto explained, “We are very costconscious
compared with the incumbent companies. We
have a lot of wisdom in regard to cutting costs. That’s why
we have much lower costs and prices.”
One of the pearls of cost-saving wisdom is to keep the
headcount as small as possible. “You don’t want to be a big
company. Smaller is better. It’s the leader’s management
philosophy. If you run the company like the incumbents,
it’s a group of bureaucrats like government or big telecom
companies.”
EMOBILE has a surprisingly small headcount with
only 560 employees, and new graduates comprise more
than half of the total number.
Eric Gan also highlighted the cost benefits by using
small-sized Node B, “I think capital spending is the
function of how to build the network. The radio station is
the major cost for a mobile carrier. When deploying base
station, operators normally put a huge cabinet in a big
room with air conditioning. Also, it incurs more running
costs, uses more electric power, consumes more rent and
requires a higher backbone as well.”
“Now with the latest technology, aided by very
small, briefcase-sized radio units, you can even hang the
equipment on the wall. So the price to build is just one
tenth of the traditional base station, and we can build
them very quickly. In Japan, we have earthquakes. A
lighter base station to put on the rooftop is always easier to
negotiate than the traditional one. Running costs are much
cheaper, because we pay less rent and use less electricity.”
Eric Gan added.
The base station mentioned above is the distributed
Node B designed and produced for EMOBILE by
Huawei.
A robust future
Dr. Semmoto is quite positive about future market
potential and said, “Although more than 80% of the
Japanese population owns a mobile phone, there is
evidence of an increasing demand for second handsets. We
estimate combined demand in Japan is about 30 million
additional subscribers. EMOBILE is focusing on this
growth opportunity.”
While the current financial crisis brings a lot of fear to
the industry, EMOBILE actually sees great opportunity.
“We are very fortunate that we completed full funding
of USD1.4 billion in 2006 for the following 5 years until
2011, before the current worldwide financial crisis.” More
importantly is that, because of the financial crisis, people
tend to be more careful with their spending, which brings
great opportunity for EMOBILE. Eric Gan added, “People
may not want to pay for an expensive fixed line. Instead,
they may opt to use a mobile phone with a modem inside
just to cut cost. This fits perfectly with our strategy to
target at the price sensitive users.”
Operators can not succeed all by themselves. To form
strong partnerships with capable and devoted partners
is imperative for sustainable growth. Dr. Semmoto has
appreciated the collaboration and cooperation with
Huawei. “Huawei from day one has been an excellent
partner to us. In the past, Huawei was totally a stranger
in the Japanese market. You have grown enormously in
the last 20 years. You have now become one of the leaders
in the telecom arena. I think that jointly EMOBILE and
Huawei can be prosperous if we stay very entrepreneurial,
very challenging and take risks.”
Editor: Gao Xianrui sally@huawei.com
FEB 2009 / Win-Win
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