Disney has confirmed plans to launch an MVNO service in Japan on Mar 1, in cooperation with Softbank Corp, which will let it use its network. Unveiling a series of branded mobile phones, the entertainment giant claims to be "extremely confident" about the new venture, despite the fact that its previous attempt at a MVNO service, in the US, failed and shut down last month. Disney, however, points out that this flop, using Sprint Nextel's US network, was mainly due to the fact that Disney had to handle everything on its own. In Japan, by contrast, Softbank has agreed to take care of the entire network management, including billing and customer care.

Disney Mobile will be the first MVNO to hit Japan's highly competitive mobile market, which has some 100m mobile subscribers and is dominated by Softbank, NTT DoCoMo and KDDI. However, Japan has recently taken steps to open up its market, and Disney is looking to draw on its strong following of fans in the country, where tens of millions of people reportedly visit Tokyo Disneyland every year. It is particularly targeting young women, which, it says, have proved avid consumers of its mobile content in Japan.

Sharp is manufacturing the branded Disney phones, which are modelled on silhouettes of Disney characters and feature links to Disney websites and content. Disney is already a major content provider for mobile phones in Japan, with some 3.5m people subscribing to its site. Of these, it says, 75% are women over 20.