News

Today, NTT Solmare Corporation (Headquartered in Osaka, President: Hiroki Oohashi, hereinafter NTT Solmare), owns COMIC- C'moA (*1) -- Japan's No. 1 mobile comic sites, launches Manga for Hanvon e-book reader produced by Hanvon Technology Co.,Ltd (hereinafter Hanvon Technology), which currently enjoys the biggest share of Chinese market via its exclusive agency, CREEK & RIVER Co,. Ltd. (Headquartered in Tokyo, President: Yukihiro Ikawa, hereinafter CREEK & RIVER) carrying on creators agency business.

This is Japan’s first comic distribution to China’s fast growing e-book reader.

*1: Official i-mode site by NTT DOCOMO, official EZweb site by KDDI, and official Yahoo! Mobile portal site by SOFTBANK MOBILE.

1．Background and Objectives

Having the largest market with the population of 1.3 billion people, China maintains high economic growth. Contents market is also growing rapidly and companies are looking for all sorts of contents to meet customers’ needs. As a result, demands for high quality Japanese contents are on the rise.

Hanvon Technology is a manufacturer gaining over 70 % share of Chinese e-book reader and the number of sales rises above million since its release in 2008. Taking advantage of this great opportunity, NTT Solmare decided to launch digital comic service in this country as a part of deploying global distribution.

2．Service summary

Our comic contents are sold on Hanvon Technology’s e-book store (http://www.hwebook.cn/) and downloaded to e-book reader made by them. To prevent illegal copy and to reduce the risk of pirated copy, DRM (Digital Rights Management) are embedded. Furthermore, ID and password are required to logins.

Each content are priced from 8 yuan to 15 yuan (approximately 100 yen to 200 yen). 22 titles are launched including “Salaryman Kintaro”, “Froggie Full of Guts”, and “The Quiet Don” and we are planning to increase the number of titles sequentially.　

3. Future Vision

NTT Solmare and CREEK & RIVER believe that this distribution to Hanvon, a China’s leading e-book reader will further stimulate and boost China’s e-book market and it will lead to raise the awareness of the amazing Japanese contents in China and expand the market further.

Utilizing our experience of domestic success and contents source, we will consider opportunities to expand and promote the MANGA on Mobile service into other countries.