Marubeni Corporation (“Marubeni”) and its fully-owned subsidiary, Marubeni Wireless Communications Inc. (“MWC”) began the comprehensive supply from September 24, 2016 of an IoT service that manages the real-time location of pallets (“the Service”) to NIKKEN LEASE KOGYO CO., LTD. (“NIKKEN”), which operates a rental and leasing business of such products as temporary construction materials and logistics equipment,.

 

Pallets are a flat structure that support goods in a stable fashion while being raised by a forklift or other jacking device but are often lost due to their frequent movement via trucks, ships and other means. To minimize the costs of lost pallets, there is a tendency for users to buy cheap wooden-pallets despite their environmental and hygienic concerns. NIKKEN plans to expand its pallet rental service to users who hesitate to use wooden pallets because of such concerns by offering a plastic pallet rental service. The real-time location of these pallets is captured through GPS, ensuring their recovery.

 

Under the Service, Marubeni and MWC will provide a total solution to NIKKEN in the M2M/IoT field by comprehensively utilizing Marubeni Group resources. Marubeni and MWC will provide the GPS terminal, develop a cloud-based real-time location system in addition to a cellular network (MWC’s core business), and operate the system.

 

GPS terminals have a long battery life and acquire not only information on location but also on temperature, acceleration, and remaining battery power. In addition, users can browse the latest location information and movement records online. In the future, the Service aims to provide added value to users by tracking the pallets and providing information such as optimum driving routes, driving instructions, in addition to analyzing open-data such as traffic and weather conditions. Nikken will seek to develop its TranSeeker brand horizontally to other business areas apart from its pallet rental service.

 

MWC has been providing a wireless communication service of about 350,000 lines as wholesale MVNO and MVNE (※) to several distributers as of August, 2016. Over the next few years, MWC, utilizing Marubeni Group resources, will provide a one-stop service to customers ranging from wireless devices and lines to IoT solutions, including cloud and application development.

 

※MVNO is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which the MVNO provides services to its customers. 

   MVNE is a company that provides network infrastructure and other related services, such as network subsystems, business support systems, provisioning, administration and operations support systems to mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).

 

 

■Marubeni Wireless Communications Inc.

Head Office ： 17-18, Shinkawa 1-chome, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

President ： Satoshi Yamagiwa

Foundation ： February 2012

Capital ： JPY 15 million

Revenue ： JPY 1.2 billion

 

■NIKKEN LEASE KOGYO CO., LTD.

Head Office ： 7-8, Sarugaku-cho 2-chome, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan

President ： Tadashi Sekiyama

Foundation ： November 1967

Capital ： PY 95 million

Revenue ： JPY 66 billion