TOKYO-NTT DoCoMo Inc. continued its move to m-commerce and traditional media with a $185 million investment in Fuji Television Network Inc.
The operator announced an agreement to buy 2.6 percent of Fuji TV, a 46-year-old, publicly held broadcaster that is not affiliated with Fuji Film Corp. DoCoMo said the investment will allow it to work closely with Fuji TV in an effort to develop new mobile communications and broadcasting services. The companies said they plan to launch a terrestrial digital broadcasting offering in April.
The announcement comes on the heels of several similar moves by DoCoMo, which boasts 50 million wireless subscribers. The operator has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent weeks on mobile payment systems and software companies in an effort to leverage the mobile phone as a payment device.
In November, DoCoMo invested $109 million in Tower Records Japan Inc. to develop mobile music services.
