LOOKING East has long been a crucial exercise for European mobile phone and media companies. The high level of technological expertise combined with an unusually savvy consumer base has made Japan an ideal test-bed for new products and services.

How did Vodafone come up with Simply, its mobile phone for technophobes? A similar version had already proved a runaway success in Japan. The introduction of i-mode, the mobile internet service pioneered by NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese group, has taken such learning to a whole new level.

I-mode has provided European and other mobile players with not only a product but an entire business and marketing model to emulate as they seek to shore up future growth. The service, aimed at getting customers to spend more on their phones by accessing websites on the move, has enticed more than 45 million subscribers in Japan.

Mobile phone operators worldwide are now signing up for the right to offer i-mode in the hope that it will encourage customers to fork out on data services where 3G, despite the billions of pounds ploughed into it, so far has failed.

Since launching i-mode in the UK last year, O2, the Spanish-owned mobile group, has secured nearly 400,000 subscribers. The service, it says, is showing the “right signs” of lifting the critical average user spend and enabling it to distinguish itself from its rivals.

Yet a Japanese idea will not always translate elsewhere. Ben Wood, of Collins Consulting, said: “People often over-look that Japan is a distinct market with distinct features, including, for example, very long commutes in which mobile phones are a key focus.”

Picture messaging — pioneered by J-Phone in 2001 and cited by Britain’s mobile players as the next big thing — has flopped in Europe. Likewise, several Japanese handset manufacturers, including Panasonic and NEC, have tried and failed to conquer Europe.

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