Mobile phones have become a must-have item for every high-powered Japanese businessman, multi-tasking mum and self-respecting teenager. Even schoolchildren often carry a mobile phone to call home on their way back from late-night cram school.

But now that mobile phone penetration in Japan has hit nearly 70 per cent, the Japanese industry is targeting what could be its last remaining frontier - ?technologically-challenged? consumers, including the elderly, who have so far been wary of owning a mobile phone.