March 23, 2010
KDDI America, a wholly-owned KDDI subsidiary (Head office: New York State, USA; Representative Director: Yasushi Kubota), will introduce an International Airtime Top-up service in the U.S. for KDDI America prepaid mobile phones, starting on Thursday April 1, 2010. The service enables the international top-up of a prepaid mobile phone outside the U.S.
Under the service, the user purchases a prepaid card for a prepaid mobile phone offered by KDDI America in the U.S. and charges an international call balance. A portion of that balance can then be shared with a prepaid mobile phone outside the U.S. via KDDI America's International Airtime Top-up Service Center [1].
The International Airtime Top-up service is aimed especially at U.S. immigrants. The service will greatly enhance the convenience of the frequent international calls made by U.S. immigrants to their families. A simple operation by the mobile phone from the U.S. enables the user to immediately [2] share the international call balance at any time with his or her family's prepaid mobile phone in his or her home country.
The International Airtime Top-up service will 2first be introduced in 15 countries [3] including Mexico, Brazil and Haiti and will gradually be expanded to the rest of the world.
This service will be offered initially by KDDI America and gradually expanded to prepaid mobile phones offered by the KDDI America Group.
The KDDI Group will continue to provide high value-added services. We aim to actively develop our business in response to the market characteristics of growing worldwide markets and to further expand our global operating base.
