DoCoMo Sets Ambitious 3G Goal
DoCoMo has set a target of selling more than 20 million high-speed data handsets this year, twice the number of its customers using such services, to help win a dominant market share. “More than 80 percent of the handsets we sell this year will be 3G, and the total number of 3G subscribers will be more than our competitor for sure,” Takeshi Natsuno, DoCoMo’s managing director of multimedia services, said Monday in an interview. [We noted this strategic move when they announced the low-cost 700i-series in February. — Ed.]
“Even with 3G, one of the killer applications on cellular phones is voice. All the operators are getting into severe competition in terms of tariff for voice,” Natsuno said. “The financial impact of the voice competition is much larger than the data competition at this point.”
“The target seems a bit high,” said Atsuo Takahashi, an analyst at Mizuho Securities. “But DoCoMo is adding 3G subscribers at the rate of about one million a month, so I think it’s likely they will overtake or tie with KDDI in the near future.” Full story Here.
–WWJ Editors