KDDI Corporation
3rdKind Inc.
July 2, 2012
Tokyo – July 2, 2012 – KDDI Corporation (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Takashi Tanaka; hereinafter referred to as KDDI) and 3rdKind Inc. (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director & CEO: Taro Hosotani; Representative Director & COO: Frederic Nouel; hereinafter referred to as 3rdKind) announce today, that both companies entered a partnership on Friday 29th, June 2012 for co-publishing of foreign smartphone apps to the Japanese Market for the KDDI "au Smart Pass".
3rdKind is a Japanese company who helps overseas developer to publish smartphone games for the Japanese market by providing marketing, localization, development and "culturization" support. This partnership with KDDI is aiming to strengthen and expand relationships with overseas developers, as well as deliver high quality game titles to the Japanese market.
KDDI invests in promising startup companies in Japan and overseas for bringing new products or services through "KDDI ∞ Labo", a startup incubation program currently inviting a second round of applications, and trough the "KDDI Open Innovation Fund".
In addition to this, the partnership is aiming to bring the best "Apps" to the beginner or advanced smartphone user in order to provide the best environment of entertainment.
Starting July 2nd, the two company will first release the Japanese version of "Cross Fingers" and "Panic Flight" to the KDDI « au Smart Pass ». From there, 1-2 games are expected to be released every month.
About "au Smart Pass"
The "au Smart Pass" is an app subscription service for KDDI's Android users: for a monthly fee of 390 yen/US$4.70, the service gives them unlimited access to more than 500 applications, which are selected by the carrier itself. All of these apps are free to download. The service has reached now more than 1 Million users.
