New (Japan) Cellular Phone Contracts Mark Record Low in January
February 13, 2002 (TOKYO) -- Japan's new cellular phone contracts in January 2002
stood at 435,500, a record low since January 1996, when statistics become available.
The growth in the number of new subscribers of cellular phone is slowing down.
The figure is based on statistics on cellular phone and personal handyphone system
phone contracts as of the end of January announced by the Telecommunications
Carriers Association (TCA).
NTT DoCoMo Inc. gained 260,000 new contracts, the J-Phone Group won 142,100
contracts and au acquired 60,000 contracts. While au maintained the same level of net
increase in the number of new contracts as in December 2001, NTT DoCoMo saw a
month-on-month drop by more than 200,000 new contracts, and J-Phone marked a
decline of more than 50,000 new contracts. The accumulative contracts of cellular phone
services amounted to 67,536,600.
The number of new PHS contracts had been recovering until December 2001 due to
brisk sales of data communications cards, but it fell in January 2002. DDI Pocket Inc.
saw a loss in the number of new contracts by 12,600, and NTT DoCoMo recorded a
decline by 4,000. The whole industry saw a net decrease in the number of new contracts
by 20,400. The accumulative contracts of PHS phones reached 5,675,100.
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