TOKYO, JAPAN, May 15, 2002 --- NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced today that they will introduce a new billing system that enables  users to pay monthly mobile phone bills at convenience stores using a two-dimensional bar code on the screens of their mobile phones.The service, dubbed "combien?" will be available at two am/pm Japan convenience stores in Tokyo ("Ichiban-cho Honsha Biru" and "Kokusai Akasaka Biru" stores) beginning May 20, 2002. Service will expand to some 1,400 am/pm stores nationwide by early July. It will also be available at several Lawson convenience stores by mid-July and expand to some 700 locations in Tokyo's 23 wards and Nagoya as of September. DoCoMo is also negotiating similar arrangements with other convenience stores. Since the service eliminates the need for a hard-copy invoice, customers can easily pay their bills whenever they visit a participating convenience store. The service is targeted at i-mode users who pay their bills by invoice. The bar code is downloaded from a dedicated site linked to the i-mode portal. To prevent double payment, the bar code is valid only on the day when it is downloaded. A dedicated scanner is used to read the two-dimensional bar code, after which the customer pays the bill. The procedure for downloading the bar code is as follows: |
| 1. | Go to i Menu site and select "Menu List." |
| 2. | Select "DoCoMo Billing Site." |
| 3. | Select "combien?" |
| 4. | Enter password (for voice mail, not i-mode). |
| 5. | Bar code is downloaded and stored in phone until end of day. |
| Note: The above windows appear in Japanese only. | |
All i-mode users, including  subscribers, except users of D501i, ER209i and NM502i phone models, can access the service. There is no fee for the service and users merely pay a small transmission charge to download the bar code.About NTT DoCoMo NTT DoCoMo is the world's leading mobile communications company with more than 40 million customers. The company provides a wide variety of leading-edge mobile multimedia services. These include , the world's most popular mobile internet service, which provides e-mail and internet access to over 32 million subscribers, and , launched in 2001 as the world's first 3G mobile service based on W-CDMA. In addition to wholly owned subsidiaries in Europe and North and Latin America, the company is expanding its global reach through strategic alliances with mobile and multimedia service providers in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. NTT DoCoMo is listed on the Tokyo (9437), London (NDCM), and New York (DCM) stock exchanges. For more information, visit www.nttdocomo.comi-mode and FOMA are trademarks or registered trademarks of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan and other countries. |
