The mobile communications market has major potential to grow over the medium to long-term as well. DoCoMo intends to pursue new and extremely promising growth by providing total business solutions that can respond to diverse user demands, especially demand for "multimedia" and "ubiquity."

FOMA applications still have tremendous room for expansion. We are aggressively working to generate demand with medium to long-term business opportunities in mind.

We continue to make efforts to develop our technology and handsets in the third generation (3G). In addition, based on our R&D capabilities, we have also embarked on fourth-generation (4G) research and development.

Making it possible to turn user demands into reality depends, of course, on research and development capabilities. DoCoMo is engaged in basic research and development of advanced technology under a trilateral arrangement that brings together our research and development center in Japan (Yokosuka Research Park, Kanagawa Prefecture), which is our main laboratory, which DoCoMo USA Labs in the U.S. (Silicon Valley), DoCoMo Euro-Labs in Europe (Munich, Germany) and DoCoMo Beijing Labs in China (Beijing, China).

Our development activities contain three priorities. The first priority is the development of handsets. We focus on increasing performance by, for example, making smaller and lighter handsets, lengthening standby times as well as improving functions to implement new services, such as online payments. The second priority is network technology. We were involved in development of service to help construct an IP-based network that can respond to increasing data traffic in a multimedia society and decreasing network costs. The third priority is wireless technology. We have been working on the development of low cost base stations to expand FOMA service areas. We were also engaged in the development of HSDPA*, which enables faster communication (the maximum transmission speed is approximately 3.6Mbps) and better transmission efficiency than the current FOMA. As the next step, We are planning the introduction of enhanced Super 3G. Using current 3G frequency bands as well as those to be newly added for 3G use, We are planning a major system evolution to achieve high-speed transmission services over 100Mbps. These upgrades are intended to maintain long-term competitiveness of 3G systems. Furthermore, in the field of basic research, we have already begun research on a fourth generation (4G/IMT Advanced) communications system (offering a transmission speed of up to 1Gbps). We have already had success with outdoor transmission speed of up to 5Gbps in December 2006. Also, we are conducting basic research into discovering new communication methods suited to the ubiquitous communications society we envision. We are proud of two of DoCoMo's most outstanding features; an industry-leading R&D organization and strong development capabilities.