J-Phone Becomes Vodafone

Japan : J-PHONE Co., Ltd. announced that it will change its brand name from J-PHONE to Vodafone and adopt the same corporate logo and design used by Vodafone operators throughout the world.

In December 2001, J-PHONE adopted the J-PHONE Vodafone dual logo to visually promote its membership in the Vodafone Group*, the world’s leading mobile carrier. Furthermore, beginning late March 2003, J-PHONE commenced with the remodeling of certain existing J-PHONE shops to re-launch them as Vodafone shops, making it possible for customers to experience the Vodafone brand firsthand. With this announcement, J-PHONE is accelerating the pace of the shop transformation and expects to complete the remodeling of all outlets by October 2003.

By adopting the Vodafone brand, J-PHONE aims to create an even stronger brand presence in the Japanese market by combining Vodafone’s association with reliability and global services and the former J-PHONE brand’s reputation for innovation, as exemplified by the pioneering Sha-mail picture messaging service.

As a member of the Vodafone Group, J-PHONE will strive to offer its customers even richer communications that are global in scope and advanced, high-value-added products and services.

For images of the Vodafone logo and Vodafone shops, please see the attached appendixes.

*The Vodafone Group is the world’s largest mobile community with 285 million venture customers and operations in 28 countries (as of December 31 2002) with a further 8 partner networks. The name “Vodafone” stands for “voice” (VO), “data” (DA) and “phone” (FONE).

About J-PHONE
J-PHONE Co., Ltd. is a leading mobile operator in Japan and a member of the Vodafone Group, the world’s largest mobile community. J-PHONE offers sophisticated mobile services including high quality voice telephony, “Sha-mail” picture messaging, “Movie Sha-mail” video messaging, “J-SKY” mobile internet and e-mail access, and Java™ applications. The company has over 14 million customers, of which 67% are Sha-mail users and 87% J-SKY subscribers. J-PHONE was awarded one of three licenses to operate 3G mobile services in Japan and launched a commercial 3G W-CDMA service, Vodafone Global Standard, on December 20, 2002

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