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Profits Up as Revenue Dips at DoCoMo
(31 Jul 2008, BWCS Staff)NTT DoCoMo, the largest mobile carrier in Japan, announced yesterday that its profit for the three months to the end of June 2008 jumped by 41.3%, compared to the same period in 2007. The company reported that the increase was due to subscriber growth and soaring sales of high-end handsets. DoCoMo's profit for the quarter reached ¥173.5 billion (US$1.6-billion), while its pre-tax profit jumped 40.4% to ¥288.4 billion.
The company reported that it had added 240,000 new customers during the April-June period, putting its subscriber base at 53.63 million. However, the operator admitted that its revenue for the three months had fallen marginally by 1.1% ¥1.17 trillion yen.
In November of last year DoCoMo introduced a price plan that charges more for handsets in exchange for a cheaper monthly phone bill, helping it cut payments for subsidies. The company said yesterday 8.9 million people had subscribed to the service as of June 30, helping boost revenue in the quarter by ¥111.8 billion.
Under the old system, Japanese carriers had sold handsets for as little as ¥1 and recouped the full cost of the phone through monthly charges to users. DoCoMo's subsidy payments had been equivalent to 20% of its sales, it said in October.
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