DoCoMo profits drop under pressure

Net income at leading Japanese operator NTT DoCoMo dropped 18.3 per cent in the fiscal year to end March 31 2006 to Y610bn (ВЈ2.95bn), as the operator struggled in an increasingly competitive market.

Operating revenues also slipped slightly, dropping 1.6 per cent year on year to Y4.76tn in fiscal 2006, compared to Y4.84tn in the previous year.

Competition in the country is expected to become increasingly fierce, with the introduction of new entrants to the mobile market and full fledged number portability scheduled for this year.

Service revenues for both FOMA 3G and mova 2G services were flat year on year at Y4.15tn, while average revenue per user (ARPU) declined as a result of the amendment of billing plans.

Voice ARPU, packet ARPU and aggregate ARPU of FOMA services hit Y5,680, Y3,020, and Y8,700 respectively, while voice ARPU, packet ARPU and aggregate ARPU of mova services came in at Y4,680, Y1,290, and Y5,970 respectively.

The number of FOMA 3G subscribers increased 104 per cent year on year to 23.46 million, while mova customers decreased 25.8 per cent to 27.68 million as a result of migration to 3G. The number of i-mode users across both technologies reached 43.36 million at the end of March.

Tags: Japan, NTT DoCoMo

This entry was posted on April 29th, 2006 and is filed under Operators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.