KDDI Wins the Latest Heat of Japanese 3G Race
(07/08/2002, BWCS Staff) Japanese mobile operator KDDI has
once again outdone the country’s largest cellco, NTT DoCoMo, by
attracting almost half a million new customers to its
next-generation service. KDDI added 493,000 subscribers to its
cdma2000 1X network in July to take its total 3G customer base
to more than 1.64 million. DoCoMo, meanwhile, which launched
the world’s first 3G services under the name FOMA in October
last year, signed up just 12,900 subscribers last month, to give it
a total of 127,400. KDDI’s success with next-generation services
has been attributed to the fact that it offers roaming between its
2G and 3G networks on the same handset, while DoCoMo
customers have had to carry a separate handset for 3G calls.
There was some good news for the NTT subsidiary: DoCoMo is
still by far the largest mobile operator in Japan and it added the
most customers during July. The company attracted almost
300,000 new users across its 2G and 3G networks last month to
give it 41.76 million customers. KDDI’s customer base rose from
12.69 million to just over 12.8 million, while the country’s third
cellular operator, Vodafone-backed J-Phone, is hot on the heels
of KDDI, adding 125,000 subscribers to end the month with 12.79
million users, although KDDI can claim an additional 2.9 million
users on its DDI Pocket PHS network.
bwcs.com
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NTT DoCoMo won most subscribers in July 0
8:35 Wednesday August 7, 2002, Telecom.paper
The battle for mobile subscribers in Japan continues as the biggest operator NTT DoCoMo secured the leading spot for July for the second month in a row, with a series of new camera-equipped phones luring users, data provided by wireless operators showed. The company said it added 290,000 cellphone subscribers in July, lifting its overall subscriber base to 41.76 million. Besides the regular cellphone service, DoCoMo also provides next generation services. It added 12,900 third-generation "FOMA" subscribers in July, bringing that total number to 127,400, and it added 571,000 subscribers to its "i-mode" mobile Internet service in July, for a total of 34.06 million, the company said. Second biggest mobile operator J-Phone won 125,000 new users. Its total subscriber base reached 12.795 million. J-Phone also said it added 144,200 subscribers to its "J-Sky" mobile Internet service in July, for a total of 10.790 million subscribers. KDDI Corp. said it added a net total of 104,200 cellphone subscribers in July, generating an overall cellphone subscriber base of 16.681 million.
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