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The I-Mode (Almost) Went Global. A Case Study In Product Export Failure., Paola Rattu

Symposium of Student Scholars

The i-mode, the world’s first commercial web browser technology for mobile phones was launched in Japan in 1999, encountering immediate success and rapidly dominating the Japanese market. Nevertheless, when the technology was launched in the US and in Europe in the early 2000s it was highly unsuccessful. Ultimately, the technology was abandoned outside Japan, and several manufacturers exited the mobile phone industry following their inability to understand foreign customers’ needs and to innovate. This paper reconstructs the history of the i-mode technology and provides a business-oriented analysis of the causes of its debacle.