UPDATE 2-KDDI wins five times more users than DoCoMo in Oct
Wed Nov 8, 2006 5:40am ET
yahoo.reuters.com
By Aiko Wakao
TOKYO, Nov 8 (Reuters) - KDDI Corp. (9433.T: Quote, NEWS, Research), Japan's No. 2 mobile phone carrier, added five times more subscribers in October than market leader NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437.T: Quote, NEWS, Research) and eight times more than Softbank Corp. (9984.T: Quote, NEWS, Research), helped by a rule change allowing customers to keep their numbers when changing operators, data from the companies showed on Wednesday.
KDDI added a net 200,500 users last month, bringing its subscriber base to 26.6 million, thanks to its popular music downloads and search services it offers with Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research).
That compares with a net addition of 40,800 users at DoCoMo to 52.14 million, and newcomer Softbank's gain of 23,800 subscribers, which brought its customer base to 15.3 million.
The rule change, known as mobile number portability (MNP), took effect on Oct. 24, triggering competition among operators to roll out attractive handsets to lure shoppers.
"As expected, this is a win for KDDI, but I get an impression that very few people are using mobile number portability," said Hitoshi Hayakawa, an analyst at Credit Suisse in Tokyo.
Indeed, the new rule did not appear to have had a significant impact on market share, with DoCoMo maintaining 55.4 percent of Japan's 94.1 million subscriber market, while KDDI expanded its share 0.2 percentage point to 28.3 percent. Softbank had 16.2 percent.
Analysts including Hayakawa have also said Softbank may have posted a net loss in subscribers in October if it didn't change its cancellation rule for prepaid phone customers, which extended their contracts by several months.
Operators also say more customers may have switched providers had there not been a system failure at Softbank that weekend, snarling up the processing of requests from consumers.
In September, KDDI added a net 160,800 subscribers, beating gains of 126,300 at DoCoMo and 23,400 at Softbank.
The companies also provided data on the net number of subscribers who switched service providers using the new rule.
KDDI, the expected gainer, said it won a net 98,300 users with MNP, meaning that there were more people who switched to KDDI than its own customers fleeing to rival operators.
Results from KDDI are the combined data of its two different mobile phone services, "au" and "Tu-ka."
In contrast, DoCoMo said it posted a net loss of 73,000 subscribers with MNP.
Softbank, which launched new price campaigns on the eve of MNP, also lost a net 23,900 under the new scheme. (Additional reporting by Aiko Hayashi) |
