SEOUL, KOREA – SK Telecom (NYSE:SKM) and Japan’s KDDI (www.kddi.com) will jointly demonstrate ‘NFC & JOY,’ SK Telecom’s NFC-based service deployed at Munhak baseball park to enhance customer convenience, at this year’s Mobile Asia Expo (MAE), held in Shanghai, China.
Commercialized in November 2011 at Incheon Munhak Stadium, home to the SK Wyverns, ‘NFC & JOY’ enables customers to purchase tickets, order food delivery and save parked car location using NFC tags installed throughout the baseball park.
SK Telecom and KDDI said that they have been invited by the GSMA to demonstrate the service, which represents a successful application of the NFC technology for improved customer convenience, as their aggressive efforts for commercialization of NFC-based services had been well-received by the GSMA. MAE visitors at the GSMA booth will be able to experience ‘NFC & Joy’ service through KDDI’s NFC devices.
The two companies began trial service for seamless NFC-based mobile payment service in February 2011 and is now getting ready for service commercialization. In addition, building on this experience, they are also reviewing plans to deploy commercial ‘NFC & JOY’ service at other baseball stadiums in Korea and also at those in Japan.
Joint demonstration of ‘NFC & JOY’ at MAE 2012 is expected to facilitate NFC collaboration between countries around the world by raising interest of worldwide mobile operators in global NFC businesses.
Kim Hoo-Jong, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Technology Research Institute of SK Planet said, “Mobile Asia Expo 2012 will serve as an opportunity to accelerate NFC collaboration between Korea, China and Japan. We are putting efforts to ensure compatibility of NFC technologies of the three countries so that people can conveniently use the same payment card, payment method and related services they use in their own country in the other two countries as well.”
Meanwhile, SK Telecom has been playing a leading role in GSMA’s NFC-related projects since 2011. Appointed as the NFC Global Project leader in April 2012, the company is standing at the forefront of the movement towards global commercialization of NFC services. In addition, in May 2012, SK Telecom has been chosen as one of the only seven operators around the world – namely, SK Telecom, KT, Deutsche Telekom, France Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Vodafone - to take part in GSMA’s new NFC Fast Track Project.
