The TCA just announced results for October confirming that SoftBank Mobile has won the most net subscribers for sixth consecutive months. Since the introduction of their so-called White Plan, which includes flat-rate voice calling within their network, the company has continued to grow it’s third place market share. According to the numbers for October 2006, when SoftBank Mobile re-launched the troubled Vodafone KK operations, they have gained almost 2M new customers.
While it was predictable that Masayoshi Son would ‘shake things up’ when he entered the market, the continued attraction to their low-cost price plans is no longer a one-time blip on the radar. The company just announced their Q2 results, attributing impressive YoY gains to the mobile units performance, to the pleasure (Credit Suisse) and concern (UBS AG) of observers in Tokyo. The long held Holy Grail of operators performance is ARPU (average revenue per user) although most would have to agree that a more valuable metric might well be APPU (average Profit per user). It should very interesting to see how this cost of customer aquisition plays out in the longer term for SBM.
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