Invested in ABEJA Inc.

NTT DOCOMO Ventures, Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan; President and Chief Executive Officer: Minoru Etoh) (“the Company”) has provided, through a fund managed by the Company, a capital contribution to ABEJA Inc. (headquartered in Minato-ku, Tokyo; Executive Director and CEO: Yousuke Okada) (“ABEJA”), a provider of video analytical technology- and machine learning technology-based solutions for non-virtual stores.

1.Overview of the investment

Through the investment fund operated by the company, NTT DOCOMO Ventures acquired shares of ABEJA issued through third party allocation.

2.Background

Currently, companies are unable to use a PDCA cycle sufficiently in the off-line market since experts have yet to establish an effective method for them to measure the results of their off-line sales promotion and store development plan formulation activities at a time when companies are using a PDCA cycle in the online market for their sales promotion and site development. Many retailers and service provider firms want to measure the results of such activities as they do in the online market. On the technology front, it is gradually becoming possible for companies to quantify non-virtual store data that essentially need to be measured. In the U.S. and European countries, the in-store marketing field has already become the focus of experts’ attention, and it may potentially begin to draw increasing attention of experts in Japan as well, going forward.

Using the non-virtual store analytical solutions delivered by ABEJA will allow retailers and service provider firms to visualize the data on in-store customer movement lines, customer staying status, store-visiting customers’ ages/genders and store visitor count on a real-time basis. Thus, this will in turn enable them to use a PDCA cycle for various measures that help them achieve increased sales and reduced costs (the optimization of their in-store layout and staff allocation). The above-mentioned solutions by ABEJA are expected to grow in the future to start catering for the global market in addition to the Japanese domestic market. The Company has decided to make a capital contribution to ABEJA this time because the latter’s business operations are anticipated to grow strongly in the coming years.

The Company expects ABEJA’s business endeavors will contribute greatly to the NTT Group’s corporate customer business and its for-store marketing solution fields.