Judy’s been talking about possibly getting a new cell phone recently, so this afternoon while out running some errands we stopped in a Vodafone shop to check out their selection.

Vodafone acquired the Japanese mobile company J-Phone a few years ago, and has since done little more than repeatedly demonstrate their utter lack of understanding of the unique Japanese market. While rivals DoCoMo and au have been constantly putting out a diverse range of new models with various designs, sizes and features to keep up with the fickle whims the rapidly changing market, Vodafone seems to be content releasing only a couple of new models each season and focusing their main energies on promoting their 3G technology in Japan, regardless of the fact that the infrastructure is spotty at best, and market demand nearly nonexistent. Although consumers are hungry for increasingly smaller and lighter handsets with sleek designs, Vodafone models are only getting clunkier, heavier and, quiet frankly, uglier, which makes it no surprise that their sales are steadily declining and their customer base rapidly shrinking.

Under these circumstances, Judy and I were certainly amused today to see Vodafone’s latest attempt to try to attract customers: the kigurumi-keitai, featuring a selection of twelve creatively-designed “costumes” for the new V501T model made by Toshiba, which was released this month. Here’s the line-up:

While some of the covers are admittedly pretty neat (especially the bull one), the V501T handset itself is exceptionally large (even larger than my TV remote!) and boasts no notable advancements in terms of features or technology.

While this latest gimmick may attract a few customers drawn to the kawaii factor of some of the “costumes,” I have sincere doubts whether it will do much to pull Vodafone out of its slump. The reason why most foreign companies fail miserably when trying to enter the lucrative Japanese market is their complete failure to understand the driving forces behind it. While American consumers may be interested in “super-sizing” and getting more bang for their buck, Japanese consumers place far greater importance on design and functionality and have few reservations about dropping loads of cash on something that suits their fancy. The companies that take the time to try to grasp the idiosyncrasies of the Japanese market in order to appeal to it stand a fair chance of success, however those that think that they can simply barge in and set up shop based on their standing overseas will face enormous challenges, as Vodafone is no doubt learning.

Well, it’s getting late, so before this senseless blather starts sounding any more like a retarded thesis, I think it’s time that I shut up and head to bed. . . .