Tag: Mobile FeliCa

The Apple Pay monopoly debate part 1: context is everything

John Gruber did everyone a favor outlining some of the stakes at play in the remarkably glib, “Remarks by Executive Vice-President Vestager on the Statement of Objections sent to Apple over practices regarding Apple Pay.” The objections are annoyingly vague and refuse to specify how Apple Pay stifled competition and innovation:

(The) Digital Markets Act will…require companies designated as gatekeepers to ensure effective interoperability with hardware and software features they use themselves in their ecosystems. This includes access to NFC for mobile payments.

Today’s case addresses a conduct by Apple that has been ongoing since Apple Pay was first rolled out in 2015 <sic, 2014 actually>. This conduct may have distorted competition on the mobile wallets market in Europe. It prevented emergence of new and innovative competition that could have challenged Apple.

Mark Gurman and Jillian Deutsch at Bloomberg also did everybody a favor unmasking PayPal as one of the instigators behind the EU Commission Apple Pay investigation. Yes, that PayPal…the financial service that snuffs out user accounts whose politics they don’t like, or worse just seizes their money.

Both pieces miss important context surrounding the debate however…and with this issue context is all, especially how Apple Pay is playing out in other global markets. Most of what follows I’ve covered in earlier posts but hope to pull the various issues together in one post. Yet again, we kickoff with an updated Apple Pay diagram.

‘Open’ NFC, gatekeepers and secure element wars
Europe has been calling Apple Pay unfair since the very beginning, with many EU member banks holding out as long as they could. German banks only joined Apple Pay in December 2018 when Vestager was already actively seeking Apple Pay complaints. Less than a year later Germany passed a bill to force Apple to ‘open’ their NFC chip. Australian banks tried the same in 2017.

The so called Apple ‘NFC chip’ is not a chip at all but a hardware/software sandwich. The Apple Pay ecosystem described in iOS Security is a collection of tightly integrated polished pieces: Secure Element, Secure Enclave, NFC Controller, Wallet and Apple Pay Servers, all wrapped into a slick, easy to use UI with a final security wall of ‘secure intent’, a double-click side button hot-wired to the Secure Element. This approach has been so successful that people divide mobile payments history into pre-Apple Pay and post-Apple Pay eras.

NFC has been on Android far longer than iPhone, and ‘open NFC’ at that, but is far less successful capturing mobile payment users than Apple Pay. This is because Android device manufactures made the classic mistake of taking the ‘let’s take awesome NFC technology and figure out how we’re going to market it’ approach. Jennifer Bailey’s Apple Pay team choose the hyper focused Steve Jobs approach of starting with the customer experience and building backwards while asking: “what incredible benefits can we give the customer, where can we take the customer?” That choice made all the difference.

Apple Pay has a very simple rule: any card that loads a Java Card applet into their embedded secure element (eSE) has to reside in Wallet app. The maximum number depends on how many Java Card applets it can hold at any one time, the previous limit was 12, the iOS 15 Wallet limit is 16 cards. Developers have two ways to access iPhone NFC: 1) Core NFC framework for NFC operations that don’t use the secure element, 2) Secure Element pass certificates for NFC operations that need secure element transactions (payments, keys, ID, passes). Any developer who wants to run applets in the eSE has to apply for a PassKit NFC/Secure Element Pass Certificate. This is covered by NDA but a company called PassKit (not Apple) gives us an idea what Apple’s Secure Element Pass guidelines are:

Apple care a great deal about the user experience. Before granting NFC certificate access they will ensure that you have the necessary hardware, software and capabilities to develop or deploy an ecosystem that is going to deliver an experience consistent with their guidelines.

The end to end user experience, the whole reason behind the success of Apple Pay. But this gatekeeping is what riles banks and financial service providers who want to load their applets into the secure element without the Apple Pay gatekeeping, without the Apple Pay ecosystem and without the Apple Pay commission. They want to do their own transactions with their own app for free. This is what the EU Commission means when Vestager says: “Evidence on our file indicates that some developers did not go ahead with their plans as they were not able to to (sic) reach iPhone users.” It should read: when they were not able to reach iPhone users for free. Either the developer didn’t apply for a Secure Element Pass, didn’t pass the certification process, balked at Apple’s certification conditions, or couldn’t agree on Apple Pay commission rates.

Secure element gatekeeping is not new, it is an essential part of the secure element system:

A Secure Element (SE) is a microprocessor chip which can store sensitive data and run secure apps such as payment. It acts as a vault, protecting what’s inside the SE (applications and data) from malware attacks that are typical in the host (i.e. the device operating system). Secure Elements handle all sorts of applications that are vital to our modern digital lives…

Mobile Payments
Here, the Secure Element securely stores card/cardholder data and manages the reading of encrypted data. During a payment transaction it acts like a contactless payment card using industry standard technology to help authorize a transaction. The Secure Element could either be embedded in the phone or embedded in your SIM card.

Lifecycle management
It’s crucial that SE-embedded devices are secure throughout their lifecycle. That’s why Secure Elements need to have an end-to-end security strategy. It’s no use developing a robust security solution for a device which becomes obsolete after a period of use. This is why Secured Elements can be updated continuously to counter new threats.

What is a secure element?

Few people, especially a PayPal or EU Commission vice president, discuss the crucial secure element lifecycle management aspect. It’s not convenient for them to say the secure element ‘gatekeeper’ is responsible for keeping it secure. Far more convenient for their arguments to omit this, portray gatekeeping as unnecessary and gatekeepers as evil. In the end however, Apple has to maintain secure element updates from the various licensed secure element providers (EMV,FeliCa Networks, MIFARE, and so on) if secure payments are going to work at all This is what people who say, ‘it’s my device, we should be able to use NFC how we want,’ do not understand.

People also forget that nothing is free, you get what you pay for. With Apple Pay as gatekeeper, users get simplicity, innovation and feature updates. Simplicity: users get NFC they can use out of the box without Android-like NFC complexity such as secure element positions and obscure express mode settings.

The user finally got his Mobile Suica to work right on Android after turning off the ‘No NFC while locked’ option.

Innovation: Apple Pay has features like Global NFC. iPhone and Apple Watch are the only smart devices that come with FeliCa built in as standard to use in Hong Kong or Japan, while Android limits functionality by market region. It’s astounding that Android, not even Google Pixel Android, has matched this basic functionality yet. We’re seeing more innovation as Ultra Wide Band (UWB) extends Wallet functionality to include ‘Touchless’ car keys and eventually, UWB enhanced automatic card selection as you approach the reader; more helpful than you might think.

iOS 15 Transit Cards

Feature updates that, ‘just work’: the recent seamless Apple Cash switch from Discover to VISA, PBOC 2.0 flavored China T-Union transit cards, MIFARE Student ID, or the addition of in-app purchases and dual mode NFC for Japanese VISA card users when VISA JP finally buried the hatchet with Apple.

And the lesson? Apple Pay changed everything in the Japanese payments market, a catalyst that opened up competition and payment choices, for everybody. All boats rose together. It’s one of the most vibrant payment markets that Apple Pay operates in.

Japan is key to understanding what’s really going on in the Apple Pay monopoly debate. Japan was the first market with an established mobile payment platform in place, long before mobile EMV contactless payments took off in Europe. iPhone also has a much larger marketshare in Japan than it does in Europe. It’s a shame people pass up the opportunity to learn from the successes and failures here.

So what’s the EU Committee vision for ‘open NFC’? I think it’s a rehash of the secure element wars when carriers locked mobile payment services to SIM contracts. In 2013 Google incorporated SimplyTapp HCE (Host Card Emulation ‘secure element in the cloud’) technology as a NFC ‘workaround’ to ‘free’ NFC from the evil clutches of mobile carriers. Sound familiar? Android NFC has never been right since.

How little things change, swap ‘evil mobile carriers’ for ‘evil Apple’ and you have the same self serving ‘open’ vs ‘closed’ NFC chip nonsense that people are debating today. FeliCa Dude, the ultimate industry insider who has experienced it all, said it best: ‘It’s all eSE or nothing now.’

And yet we now have Île-de-France Mobilités (IDFM) turning back the clock, circumventing the eSE on NFC equipped Android devices and going all in with HCE for IDFM’s Smart Navigo service for Android. To me this says all you need to know what European priorities are regarding the ‘open NFC’ model: eliminate eSE gatekeepers by forcing the less secure network dependent HCE as a required option. Good luck with that. From a transit perspective, based on Mobile Suica user experiences, I don’t think HCE Smart Navigo will be a smooth ride.

The EU Committee ‘open NFC’ vision might look ideal…to Apple Pay competitors. Regular users however, will have to deal with the ugly reality of multiple NFC apps, multiple NFC secure element modes and clashing updates that cancel out NFC services. Apple Silicon eSE space is limited to 16 cards. If that sounds like a lot now, wait until you have credit cards, transit cards, home, car and office keys and ID installed along with ‘open’ NFC apps wanting their own eSE space too. Services will be squeezed out forcing the user to intervene. If the EU Committee thinks this environment fosters competition and innovation while growing mobile payment use, dream on.

Japanese tech journalist Junya Suzuki has covered NFC mobile payment developments in Europe, America and Japan for over 2 decades. He doesn’t think the EU is playing an even hand here, in his opinion Samsung and Huawei would never face the scrutiny that Apple now faces. In typical European cultural fashion, EU motives pay lip service to fair open markets while playing an underhanded game of chess to make Apple do what EU banking interests want Apple to do. In other words, a double standard.

What does Apple need to do?
I’ve always said that Apple needs to make the Secure Element Pass application process as transparent as possible. Keeping the blackbox NDA process as it is now makes Apple Pay a target, increasingly difficult to defend the status quo. Secure Element access on the level of Core NFC is a long shot, the very definition of a secure element means there has to be a developer certification process similar to EMVCo, FeliCa Networks, MIFARE, Calypso Networks Association, etc., that protects the privacy and business interests of all parties. But it would be great if there is a middle way where Apple can securely open things up for iPhone as a digital wallet, and iPhone as a payment terminal. We’ll see if Apple has anything to say about the subject at WWDC22.

Part 2: the gatekeeper difference

Recommended reading: Ruimin Yang’s wonderful overview, “Apple Pay monopoly, are we really comparing ‘Apples’ with ‘Apples?” examines the Apple Pay system architecture, how it compares to other digital wallet platforms, (Google Pay, Samsung Pay) and what ‘open vs closed’ means in the ‘Apple Pay is a monopoly’ debate.

Super Suica Cloud

A Japanese friend once told me that when Suica first came out, young people in Tokyo sent Suica cards to hometown families to use for coming to Tokyo. But parents and grandparents sent them back saying, “we can’t use them,” even when they could use them in their local area.

What they were really saying was, ‘Suica doesn’t get us the same transit perks we do using local paper tickets or mag stripe cards.’ There has long been a huge gap between transit services available in major cities which ‘don’t work’ in one way or another for those in outlying areas.

That’s the challenge facing the Japanese transit IC card system. Being able to use a Suica or ICOCA transit card in the sticks isn’t enough, local region services must be attached to make it worthwhile for people living outside major city areas. Transit IC has to evolve if it is going to be useful in the mobile era with proliferating smartphone payment apps vying for a piece of the national transit pie.

Now that we have a clearer vision of how Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate cards address this problem and how they are central to JR East’s MaaS strategy, it’s time to look at evolving JR East cloud services and how they fit into that strategy. There are a number of new cloud service parts that have come on line over the past year, or are coming soon…some visible, some not.

Taken together they comprise what I call ‘Super Suica Cloud’ following my earlier definition of Super Suica: a collection of mobile focused transit and payment infrastructure services that can be shared with or incorporate other company services, or be hosted by JR East for other companies. MaaS is an elastic term that holds a lot of flashy concepts, but I think JR East is aiming for something more low-key but practical, a Japanese Multimodal MaaS if you will.

The immediate concrete end-goals are service expansion with cost reduction; elimination of duplicate or proprietary dedicated infrastructure in favor of open internet cloud technology. With that in place the next goal is tight integration of transit payment services that work everywhere but also deliver tailored services for local regions. Let’s examine the parts.

Mobile Suica
People assume that Mobile Suica does everything mobile, but basically it’s a station kiosk in the sky. Put money in for a transit card, put money in for a recharge, or a commuter pass, a day pass, and so on. Issuing, recharging and managing Suica cards on mobile devices is what Mobile Suica was built for.

As the world’s first mobile transit card service, Mobile Suica has made a lot of progress over the years expanding support to include Android, Apple Pay and wearables, but the work isn’t done until any mobile device from anywhere can add Suica. And since Mobile Suica hosts Mobile PASMO (launched in 2021) and almost certainly the forthcoming Mobile ICOCA (coming early 2023), getting those on an equally wide digital wallet footing is just as important.

As the face of all things Suica on mobile devices, the smartphone app could have many more things plugging into it, like Hong Kong’s Octopus App. So far however, JR East has chosen, wisely in my opinion, to keep it limited to basic housekeeping, breaking out ticketing and MaaS functions to separate apps.

Suica Fare Processing • JESCA Cloud
This is the traditional Suica network system centerpiece that locally processes touch transit stored fare on station gates and touch e-Money payments in stores. The station gate fare side is getting a major new expansion on May 27, 2023 with a simplified cloud based Suica transit fare network rolling out to 44 Tohoku area JR East stations. This new Cloud Suica area closely aligns with recently launched Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate cards.

Cloud Suica 2023 additions (Orange) and Suica 2 in 1 cards below

The store payment side also has a simplified cloud based FeliCa payment network and a name: JESCA-Cloud. System details are vague but Cloud Suica transit fare and JESCA Cloud store payments appear to do the same thing: move transaction processing off local hardware and onto the cloud. Fast processing time is very important at transit gates, Suica tap times are the fastest out there. Those familiar with the Suica system say Cloud Suica will spilt it 50% local processing / 50% cloud processing. Dumber terminals, smarter cloud that still offers great Suica service…we hope.

One difference Cloud Suica has from a similar effort by JR West for ICOCA, is that Cloud Suica supports all the standard Suica features like commuter passes that cloud ICOCA does not. An interesting side note is that JR East hosts the processing for JR Central’s TOICA transit card network, they can certainly put the new Cloud Suica backend to good use expanding TOICA coverage in rural lines like the Minobu line.

ID Port
Comb through recent JR East press releases and you’ll find 3 service announcements built around ID PORT, a “cloud based ID verification solution” from JREM (JR EAST MECHATRONICS CO., LTD), the company that builds Suica infrastructure.

  • Maebashi City TOPIC MaaS service (November 2020): Local MaaS discount services provided by TOPIC that use Suica with My Number card address and age to verify eligibility:
Maebashi City TOPIC MaaS service links Suica and My Number Card to unlock services
(Japanese Railway Engineering January 2022, No.215)
  • Suica Smart-Lock (December 2021): registered Suica card access a variety of access services provided by ALLIGATE:
CyclunePedia bike parking
  • Mamorail (March 2020): a notification service for parents or caregivers, the first service based on ID-PORT. A registered Suica or PASMO (child) triggers a email notification when tapped at the transit gate with station and time info emailed to the parent’s/caregiver’s device.

All of the announcements have 3 components: a transit card (Suica), ID-PORT, 3rd party services attached to Suica (or PASMO) using ID-PORT as the system glue. Most of these are either in testing or ‘coming soon’. What is ID-PORT?

ID-PORT is explained on the JREM site, but the first public mention in an NTT Data PDF document from November 2020 is more revealing: “The Open MaaS Platform and supporting Multimodal MaaS”. The JR East Suica MaaS strategy is outlined with various scenarios that indicate ID-PORT is the JREM side with MaaS services on the NTT Data side. In other words a co-venture.

NTT Data Journal: A multi-model open MaaS platform

The job of ID-PORT is that it acts as the middle man ID verification glue linking a registered Suica (or similar Transit IC card) with various 3rd party services such as special ticketing, access and discounts.

The interesting thing about the ID-PORT and NTT Data MaaS platform reveal is that the timing coincides with Sony’s release of FeliCa Standard SD2, the next generation FeliCa architecture used for Suica 2 in 1 cards. One of the little discussed new SD2 features is ‘FeliCa Secure ID’. Here is Sony’s diagram of how it works.

Sony FeliCa Standard SD2 FeliCa Secure ID

Look familiar? Yep, ID-PORT sure looks like FeliCa Secure ID in action. The JREM ID-PORT page is more rounded out, incorporating non-FeliCa ID verification methods like QR and bio-authentication and many different services. ID-PORT has already been added to JESCA-Cloud and CardNet so that linked services are widely available on store payment terminals, not just Suica transit gates. In sum it represents MaaS and Account Based Ticketing in action with ID-PORT at the center.

JREM ID-PORT

MaaS and Account Based Ticketing in action
MaaS and Account Based Ticketing are the new hotness now that people realize open-loop doesn’t solve everything as banks and card companies want us to believe. Fare Payments Platform provider Masabi explains it this way:

Account Based Ticketing (ABT) shifts the fare collection system from being ‘card centric’, meaning the ticket holds the journey information and right to travel, and moves this to the back office. Moving the ticket information to the back office holds a number of benefits. It means passengers no longer need to buy a ticket or understand fares to travel and instead they use a secure token, typically either a contactless bank card, mobile phone or smartcard.

In this scenario FeliCa Secure ID is a secure token, ID-PORT is the secure token platform using the secure token to link ticketing and services together. That sounds nice but when will we see it in action? I think we already are.

Eki-Net Account Based Ticketing
As explained above, ABT attaches tickets from the cloud to a secure token, in this case Suica. By this definition Eki-Net Shinkansen eTickets represent JR East’s first step into ABT ticketing. Eki-Net uses registered accounts and credit cards purchase and attach eTickets to Suica. These eTickets do not use Suica prepaid stored fare nor is any eTicket information written to the Suica card, the eTicket system uses Suica as a secure token. JR Central smart EX is a similar ABT service and let’s not forget the web-only multi-lingual JR-East Train Reservation service that provides some ABT ticketing for inbound visitors.

Will JR East ABT implement the ‘no longer need to buy a ticket’ part of the Masabi ABT vision? I doubt it. Shinkansen eTickets are much lower ABT hurdle: lower passenger volume on far fewer transit gates than regular Suica gates. The complexity of interlocking non-Shinkansen Japanese transit systems and the vast array of fare schedules, such as higher paper fares vs cheaper IC fares, don’t easily straitjacket into an open-loop or ABT fare box, and it doesn’t fit the JR East business model.

Suica 2 in 1 region extras
There are services besides ticketing attached to a ‘secure token’ Suica. One of the important things easy to miss in the Suica 2 in 1 rollout are extra region features not available in regular Suica. Disability Suica cards for example. These are finally due to launch on Suica and PASMO cards in October 2022, but disability Suica 2 in 1 cards are already available in region affiliates.

There are also region affiliate transit points, one of the services that ID-PORT is advertising for JR East MaaS. Transit points all ‘just work’ automatically the same way. Points are earned from recharge and transit use and automatically used as transit fare. The user doesn’t do anything except tap the bus card reader. No registration, no setup. I wish JRE POINT had an option to work this way.

Transit points mimic the scheme of old regional transit mag strip card like Nishitetsu that gave ¥1,100 with a ¥1,000 recharge. Those features were popular (automatic simplicity in action again). PayPay used a similar strategy to quickly build a large customer base but pissed everybody off later as they got big and started changing bonus rate returns like used underwear. That won’t happen with Suica 2 in 1 cards as region transit points are locked in by local government subsidies to the region affiliates.

AOPASS transit points, different regions have different point returns but they all work the same way.

Streamlined simplicity, integration, regionality
Despite the la-la-land promise of MaaS and Account Based Ticketing, the ‘just works’ angle is crucial for people to actually use it. One of the current problems with Mobile Suica, Eki-Net, JRE POINT and the MaaS services JR East advertises is that is each service is a separate app + registration + attach cards process. This needs to be streamlined into a single simple JR East sign-on service option like Sign in with Apple that works across multiple services. I suspect ID-PORT is the glue between Mobile Suica and JRE POINT that keeps those registered services automatically linked even if the Suica ID number changes. A good sign because the JR East cloud needs a lot dynamic linking.

There is also the larger problem of integration outside of JR East, such as the current state of multiple online ticketing services; Eki-Net for JR East, EX for JR Central, Odekake-net for JR West, and so on. It would bet great to have a common app that plugs into every online ticketing service. At the very least JR Group companies need to integrate eTicketing the same way they have always integrated paper ticketing for one stop service in their own apps.

The bigger question is do Super Suica Cloud parts (ID-PORT / Mobile Suica / Cloud Suica) scale beyond JR East to include other JR Group companies (JR West, JR Central, etc.) and potential region affiliates nationwide? If increased services with reduced costs is their MaaS goal, JR East needs to step up to the plate and share. Infrastructure sharing with backend integration is the only way forward for all. Japanese transit has always excelled at physical interconnection, the cloud service side needs the same level of interconnectedness.

There are cultural angles too. Japanese have a passion for hunting down local perks, bargains and discounts. People complain about Eki-Net (deservedly) but they sure scramble and swamp the system getting those time limited discount eTickets like crazy pre-COVID era Black Friday midnight Christmas shopper crowds rushing into the store.

There is also the traditional cultural value of promoting local economies. As the saying goes, cities are only healthy in the long term when local economies are healthy too. If JR East is really serious about promoting regional MaaS, they’ve got to aggressively offer linked services that clearly promote regions. There are many region programs that visitors are simply not aware of. JR East can do a lot simply linking them to discount coupons, limited offer eTickets and such that appeal to the bargain hunter Japanese mind. The key is being creative and nimble like QR payment players.

The JR East MaaS region affiliate strategy was conceived long before the COVID crisis, yet COVID also presents a golden opportunity to invest in regions and promote working remotely. The world has changed and transit has to change too, the biggest risk is doing nothing, staying with the status quo. The emerging Japanese MaaS vision is unique in that Japan has a golden opportunity of leveraging the national Transit IC card standard into something new, taking it into the next era…if old rivalries and sectarian interests don’t get in the way and blow it, that is. Either way the next few years will be a very interesting time for Japanese transit.

Some related posts
Super Suica Reference
Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate List
Suica 2 in 1 mobile challenge

Rakuten Mini and me

I love shaggy dog stories, let me rephrase that, I love shaggy dog contactless payment user stories. Sutapa Saito’s Rakuten Mini saga is a fun read that covers the short 2 year life of his Rakuten Mini smart device. Rakuten called it a smartphone but as Saito san points out, it’s a lousy phone. It’s a great little Osaifu Keitai device however, that’s the size of Suica card with a little more thickness.

Saito originally got the device because he wanted a cheap backup Osaifu Keitai to dump all his FeliCa ePayments card onto (Suica, nanaco, WAON, Rakuten Edy) to use during the Cashless Tax Rebate program that kicked off just before COVID hit. It was fortuitous choice and he found that he used it a lot, much more than anticipated as contactless payments really took off during the double whammy of cashless tax rebates and COVID.

Since little devices mean little shitty batteries, by December 2021 Saito’s Rakuten Mini was living from plug to plug. He wanted to buy new one but Rakuten wasn’t selling them anymore. He ended up buying 4 used ones, you can pick up a used Mini these days for about ¥5,000. That’s a disposable price point.

He uses the Mini without a case and it fits in wallet, his real wallet, without the power on and simply taps the wallet to pay. No power, no mobile connection, all his eMoney cards in one ‘express mode’ device, in wallet. Saito’s piece illustrates some unique Japanese mobile user characteristics of juggling more than one device. This is because Osaifu Keitai is the world’s oldest mobile payment platform, since 2004. Mini is his eMoney wallet, iPhone is his phone and Apple Pay credit card Wallet.

The express mode payment Mini stays in his wallet, the Face/Touch ID authorization payment iPhone is standalone. It’s the kind of thing I can’t imagine westerners doing. It also illustrates some differences between using eMoney on Osaifu Keitai vs Apple Pay. All Osaifu Keitai eMoney works in Power Reserve Express Mode, Apple Pay only does that for Suica and PASMO.

With a growing selection of cheap Osaifu Keitai devices coming from China, Rakuten would do well to offer an updated super cheap Mini that fits in a wallet. A real wallet.

Rakuten Mini fits in Saito’s wallet, now that’s what I call mobile.

Mobile FeliCa evolution: FeliCa without the FeliCa chip

Mobile FeliCa is a Java Card applet on a secure element (SE). If the right applet is present with the right keys, and the CLF (contactless front-end) is configured to route Type F frames to the SE, you can enable Mobile FeliCa on any SE.

FeliCa Dude

FeliCa Dude did his usual public service of posting Mobile FeliCa details for the latest Pixel 6 devices. There wasn’t any change from Pixel 5, so no global NFC Pixel for inbound visitors. Nevertheless it’s a good opportunity to review some important recent developments that have taken place behind the scenes on the Android Mobile FeliCa side and examine some possible 2022 scenarios. Things have changed even if most users don’t notice any difference.

The chart outlines Mobile FeliCa on Google Pixel developments based on information from FeliCa Dude’s tweets.

Mobile FeliCa 4.0 (Pixel 4) freed Android device manufacturers from having to use embedded secure element + NFC chips from the FeliCa Networks supply chain. Any FAST certified secure element will do. This development has resulted in a number of inexpensive Osaifu-Keitai SIM-Free smartphones released by Chinese manufacturers recently that are selling well. Hopefully it will have wider implications for inexpensive global NFC Android devices. There are lots of people in Hong Kong who would buy one to use Octopus.

Mobile FeliCa 4.1 (Pixel 5/Pixel 6) introduced multiple secure element domains. This allows the device manufacturer to ‘own’ the eSE and load or delete Java Card applets. FeliCa Dude thinks that multiple secure element domains (MSED) might play a part in the MIC digital My Number Card due to launch on Osaifu Keitai devices in 2022. My Number card uses NFC-B but MSED allows the Mobile FeliCa secure element to host it anyway, an interesting development.

Mobile FeliCa 4.2 or 5.0? The next version of Mobile FeliCa (MF) will hopefully support FeliCa SD2 next generation features that shipped in November 2020, features that power Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate Transit Cards (aka Super Suica) which are going wide in March 2022. These cards need to be on mobile for future MaaS service plans outlined by JR East which cannot happen until SD2 features are added.

The improvements in MF 4.1 certainly give Android device manufacturers the ability to update MF over the air but don’t hold your breath. Standard industry practice to date has been ‘buy a new device to get new features’. Apple has been somewhat better in this regard: MIFARE support was added in iOS 12 for Student ID cards and iOS 15 fixed some Calypso bugs on ‌iPhone‌ XR/XS and ‌iPhone‌ SE.

A FeliCa Dude Reddit post comment regarding Asus smartphones illustrates the pre-MF 4.0 situation: “any phone that lists ‘NFC’ compliance must support Type F (FeliCa), but as there is no Osaifu-Keitai secure element <aka Mobile FeliCa secure element>, you will be limited to reading and potentially charging physical cards: you cannot use the phone as a card itself.” That was then, this is now.

People assume FeliCa support requires a FeliCa chip but this is not true. The evolution of hardware independent Mobile FeliCa with Mobile FeliCa 4.x is very clear: the ‘FeliCa chip’ from Sony/FeliCa Networks requirement is long dead and gone. Manufacturers like Xiaomi claim they make special models and add FeliCa chips just for the Japanese market, but that’s just marketing BS: they run Mobile FeliCa on the same NXP NFC chipset they use everywhere. Modern smartphones supporting FeliCa don’t have a FeliCa chip, everything from EMV to FeliCa and MIFARE runs on any GlobalPlatform certified secure element on any Android device.

Hopefully the sum of recent Mobile FeliCa developments, along with Garmin Suica, Fitbit Suica and WearOS Suica support, indicate that Mobile FeliCa Osaifu Keitai services will become standard on Android devices as they have been on all iOS and watchOS devices since 2017.

iPhone Japanese marketshare update

I don’t put much faith in market data from companies selling research to sell their other ‘services’. If you ever observed how the backend research process works, you wouldn’t either. Nevertheless it’s fun to read and compare signposts along the never ending journey. MM Research Institute (MMRI) issued a PR tease for their Japanese smartphone marketshare report covering results for the first half of the Japanese 2021 fiscal year (April~September).

The Keitai Watch site paid for the full report and posted some numbers for the various MMRI breakdowns.

Marketshare ranking (all mobile phones)

  1. Apple: 41.1
  2. Sharp: 11.2
  3. Kyocera: 10.4
  4. Sony: 9.7
  5. Samsung: 9.2
  6. FCNT (Fujitsu): 6.7
  7. Other: 11.6

The category breakdowns show some interesting new developments

Marketshare ranking (smartphones only)

  1. Apple: 45.0
  2. Sony: 10.7
  3. Sharp: 10.4
  4. Samsung: 10.1
  5. OPPO: 6.2
  6. FCNT (Fujitsu): 5.9

The story here is that iPhone was selling well leading up to the iPhone 13 rollout, with the addition of Rakuten Mobile offering deeply discounted iPhone 12 and iPhone SE that could be bought with Rakuten Points certainly helping the most, once again demonstrating the power of the Rakuten Economic Zone.

Marketshare ranking (non-carrier SIM-Free only)

  1. Apple: 41.9
  2. Sharp: 18.7
  3. OPPO: 18.6
  4. XIAOMI: 7.1
  5. Samsung: 6.2

The non-carrier SIM-Free ranking interests me most. OPPO and XIAOMI released some interesting low end FeliCa Osaifu Keitai capable models recently. The surprisingly strong showing tells me that the market wants inexpensive SIM-Free Osaifu Keitai models. If there was a SIM-Free FeliCa/Osaifu Keitai ranking it would probably be Apple, OPPO and XIAOMI. OPPO wins because they deliver 5G and FeliCa for a very low price.