In an exclusive interview with Telecom Review, Daisuke Morikawa, CTO of KDDI Digital Life, and one of the speakers at Innovate Asia in Bangkok, Thailand, discussed how the company is redefining connectivity through data, customer engagement, and 5G innovation. He also elaborated on KDDI's bold strategy to transform the digital experience and expand beyond traditional connectivity.
KDDI Digital Life places a strong focus on surpassing connectivity. Can you tell us how this philosophy shapes your approach to technology and innovation?
KDDI Digital Life now has three pillars for surpassing connectivity: ‘bundling data volume and digital coupons in daily life,’ ‘non-telco mini apps for customer engagement,’ and ‘exposure of connectivity.’
Our basic service is pre-paid in a matured post-paid market in Japan. The main purpose of this digital brand is to provide full flexibility to our customers. This has created use cases such as one-day unlimited, end-of-the-month top ups (due to data shortage), and securing backup connectivity in case of less coverage or some outage in the main line.
Our challenge is how to encourage our customers to experience new offerings. Firstly, we are providing data volume together with digital coupons like ice cream coupons, coffee coupons etc. in daily life. Customers can get and enjoy data connectivity through daily life activities.
Secondly, we are implementing mini apps to encourage our customers to come to our own apps more frequently. We give them tokens based on their activities, which can be exchanged for data volume and some gift coupons. This could contribute to our customers’ engagement.
Thirdly, we are providing SDK to third-party partners. For example, Abema, which is a very popular internet TV content provider in Japan, now includes our SDK. Once Abema customers have exhausted the data, they can easily add data volume without changing from the Abema app to our app. Additionally, once they decide to join our services, they can finish the onboarding process without changing from the Abema app to our app. This leads to the significant improvement of user experiences.
The other interesting thing is that KDDI has recently acquired a 50% share in the LAWSON convenience store. LAWSON’s specific bundling product has been added on our SDK, and this SDK will be embedded on LAWSON’s app. This is a good use case demonstrating that connectivity can penetrate daily life. Those who are coming to LAWSON might also be other MNO’s subscribers; those customers could also join our services once they are interested in our services.
What recent technological advancements or projects are you most excited about in pushing beyond traditional connectivity?
Exposure of connectivity is very important for the monetization of 5G. Many people have their own favorable app/website and community on the internet, spending much time on them. So, in collaboration with those partners, we can extend our revenue streams as well as get better engagement. The reason why we developed SDK, which enables onboarding and top-up, is to ensure that our partners can easily embed SDK and iterate their value proposition quickly based on the customer’s voice. Once partners are convinced, then they can scale up their products.
The GSMA Open Gateway exposes telco functions, however, some partners might be hesitant to get involved in the beginning. Our SDK is useful especially for those partners.
How is KDDI Digital Life utilizing emerging technologies like AI, IoT, or 5G, to offer value-added services that go beyond basic connectivity?
5G SA slicing is a key enabler of growth. For example, many people gather to watch events like live shows and firework festivals, where network congestion might happen. Even in this situation, customers can enjoy multi-view live video from drones via our prioritized connectivity, which is bundled with their admission tickets.
The other thing we are now focusing on is AI recommendation. By gathering customers’ behavior on our partners’ apps as well as our own app, we can enhance the customer’s experience.
What are your key priorities in transforming KDDI Digital Life’s connectivity offerings, and how do you see the industry evolving over the next few years?
Our digital brand was promoted initially on the internet, and then expanded from our own app to our partners’ apps/websites, and LAWSON CVS is now there as an offline channel. This enhancement allows us to penetrate our connectivity into customers’ daily life.
This SDK could be also applied to travel eSIM services. Customers basically want to use local connectivity, the payment apps they are used to in their daily life, and some local offerings based on their behavior while travelling. We believe this kind of extension among multiple MNOs will definitely happen in a few years.
