Amp’d to open content portal in Japan

Amp’d Mobile is moving overseas to Japan, but it’s not starting a virtual carrier like it has done in the U.S. Instead it plans to open a mobile content portal on the deck of Japanese CDMA provider KDDI.

The strategy will give Amp’d access to KDDI’s 20 million subscribers immediately as opposed to the long process of signing up its own subscribers. In September it announced it had 50,000 customers after 10 months of operations in the U.S.

The MVNO will make all of the services of its Amp’d Live content deck available over the mobile portal and has plans to launch a satellite radio service in Japan. The games, sports and lifestyle content is designed to appeal to the 18-24 demographic, making it one of the most targeted wireless services in the U.S.

In August, Amp’d announced a similar deal with Telus in Canada, launching a portal available to the operator’s 4.5 million subscribers.