According to everyone’s favourite web resource since the 1950s, Manga have steadily become a major part of the Japanese publishing industry, representing a 406 billion yen market in Japan in 2007 (approximately $3.6 billion). Manga have also become increasingly popular worldwide. In 2008, the U.S. and Canadian manga market was $175 million.
Manga for those who don’t know are Japanese cartons that look like this:
Source: Brettb.com
And they have a cult like niche following in various parts of the world including India.
And it is this Manga that Tata Docomo has begun providing its users with. This of course has come out of NTT Docomo’s Japanese roots with whom Tata Teleservices joined hands to launch the co-branded GSM service in India.
According to this post, the Indo-Japanese venture will offer 6 title, which would be translated in English and the company plans to give out more mobile manga in the coming days. These 6 titles will come at Rs. 20 a piece. Tata Docomo is said to be looking at around 2000 to 3000 downloads of this service.
Interestingly, Docomo has been offering this VAS in other regions as well, it had introduced this in France in June under the name Manga through French operator Bouygues Telecom S.A. I believe the service can be accessed the same way as how it is served in Europe that is through a dedicated reader/browser.
Tata Docomo has created a few ripples in the mobile GSM space with its innovative pricing for various services be it per second rates or the recently introduced diet SMS plans. It clearly seems to be aiming for the more cost conscious youth market, and this move certainly puts more weight tot he thought. The popularity of Manga and anime has been rising amongst the teens and young adults in India and they’re likely to be open for more avenues to access such content. In fact mobile versions might suit perfectly with the crowd to read and experience the content better than most other media.
aha atlast some companies are also relizing the popularity of manga