Launched by NTT DoCoMo in the early 1999, i-mode is a service offering wireless browsing and mail from mobile phones. It was launched at a time when Internet had not picked up in Japan. An exponential growth in terms of susbribers and content providers began then on and today subscribers total a whopping 20.5 million plus. I-mode uses CHTML(Compact HyperText Markup Language) which is a stripped down version of HTML . This has been a very advantageous factor as it makes content providing a lot easier than having to go through the pains of learning another scripting language like WML and the likes. At present 900 plus companies provide content through i-mode with more than 50000+ independent sites. The service is based on packet-switched data network and users are charged based on the volume of data they download, not for time they stay connected.