After a period of economic turmoil, Japan's GDP has shown healthy growth in 2003 and 2004. Finally, leading Japanese corporations, particularly in the automobile and home electronics sectors, are announcing improved profit and gains in market shares. Capital spending is growing at double-digit rates in the manufacturing sector, thanks to the positive economic environment. Japan's IT spending, however, is not growing as fast as other economic indicators. In this session, IDC will present detailed trends in Japan's IT investment, including breakdowns by vertical market and corporate size, and identify key business opportunities and issues for IT vendors looking at the Japan market.

Japan has long been renowned for its cutting-edge technology and innovative telecommunications services. This session will focus on broadband access and mobile phone services - two areas of telecommunications where Japan is rapidly advancing. Through a combination of low prices and innovative service packages, it has only taken a few short years for Softbank BB and Yahoo Japan to seize a significant market share from local incumbent NTT. In the mobile phone market, KDDI's au service(mobile phone service of KDDI) has been making strong gains but NTT DoCoMo is becoming more effective in promoting FOMA(NTT DoCoMo's 3G mobile phone service, which was launched in 2001), its own 3G service. IDC will examine the dynamics and strategies in these two markets, and look at what the future holds.