LISMO

Updated on Nov 05, 2023

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LISMO is an online music service provided by au, a Japanese mobile phone brand run by KDDI, a Japanese telecommunication company. This service uses a mobile phone as a music player. This service was introduced on January 19, 2006, and the service began operating at the end of January in Japan. The first mobile phone which supports LISMO was sold on January 26, 2006. Since 2008, KDDI and Okinawa Cellular introduced 'LISMO Video', a new service with new means to enjoy video content as well.

In April 2013, KDDI acquired Taiwanese streaming service KKBOX. The LISMO and KKBOX services were merged under the KKBOX name. KKBOX is now expanding into other Asian markets.

Name

LISMO is short for au Listen Mobile service. The "LIS" in "LISMO" is pronounced the same as "risu", the Japanese word for "squirrel".

Setting of mascot

The mascot of this service is LISMO-kun. It is a silhouette of a squirrel carrying an orange logo with earphones connected to it. Some original goods of this mascot are sold only at the "LISMO FOREST" of KDDI Designing Studio.

Supported phones

LISMO is supported only by CDMA 1X WIN phones.

Released in 2006

Casio: W41CA,"G'zOne" (W42CA),W43CA

Hitachi: W41H, W42H, W43H, W43HⅡ

Kyocera: W41K, W42K, W43K, W44K

Sanyo: W41SA, W42SA, W43SA

Sharp: W41SH

Sony Ericsson: W41S,"Walkman Phone" (W42S), W43S, W44S

Toshiba: "Music-HDD" (W41T),W43T, W44T, W44TⅡ, W44TⅢ, W45T, "DRAPE" (W46T), W47T

au design project: "neon" (W42T by Toshiba)

Released in 2007

Casio: W51CA, W52CA,"EXILIM Phone" W53CA

Hitachi: W51H, W52SH, "Wooo Phone" W53H

Kyocera: W51K

Panasonic: W51P, W52P

Sanyo: W51SA, W52SA, W53SA

Sharp: "AQUOS Phone" (W51SH),W52SH

Sony Ericsson: W51S,"Walkman Phone" W52S,W53S

Toshiba: W51T, W52T, W53T, W54T, W55T

au design project: "Media Skin" (W52K by Kyocera), and "INFOBAR 2" (W55SA by Sanyo)

Released in 2008

Casio: W61CA,"G'zOne" (W62CA), "EXILIM PHONE" W63CA

Hitachi: W61H, "Wooo Phone" (W62H / W63H)

Kyocera: W61K, W64K, W65K

Panasonic: W61P, W62P

Pantech&Curitel: W61PT

Sanyo: W61SA, W62SA, W63SA, W64SA

Sharp: "AQUOS Phone" (W61SH / W64SH), W62SH, "URBANO" (W63SH)

Sony Ericsson: "Cyber-Shot Phone" W61S, W62S, "re" (W63S), W64S, "Walkman Phone, Xmini" (W65S)

Toshiba: W61T, W62T, "Sportio" (W63T), W64T, W65T

Released in 2009

Casio: CA001

Hitachi: "Wooo Phone" (H001)

Panasonic: P001

Sharp: SH001

Sony Ericsson: "Cyber-shot phone" S001, "Walkman Phone, Premier3(Cube)" (SOY01)

Toshiba: T001

Function overview

This system provides the following functions;

Listen to music on a mobile phone and/or a personal computer.

Download and share music on a mobile phone and/or a personal computer.

Copy music from a CD (compact disc) to a mobile phone.

Share playlists with other LISMO users.

Use downloaded music as a ringtone

Backup address book data etc. to a personal computer

File format

Under investigation

The music file has .KMF extension on the phone and becomes .KDR on the PC, the codec is HE-AAC with 48 kbit/s bitrate, which is same as au's full track ringtone service.

Core services

au Music Player

au Music Port

au Music Store

Uta Tomo (うたとも) (TM)

Internationalization

This service is available only in Japan as of January 2006.

Some issues

Although all phones in Japan have an option to switch to English, phones from AU are not truly bilingual. Phones from AU use same software for all phone models (e.g. LISMO player, etc.). This software has not been translated. Thus, it is not easy for non-speakers of Japanese to use it as compared to in-built music players provided by AU competitors (such as NTT Docomo, Softbank, etc.)

Commercials

LISMO commercials, which changes approx. every 3 months, use many songs by J-pop artists. On March 5, 2008, an album titled Best of LISMO! was released. The album contains all 10 songs used in LISMO commercials that aired by the Summer 2007.

List of songs used in the commercial (in order of which the commercial aired):