SoftBank Mobile Continues Winning Streak
The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) is reporting that Softbank Mobile won the monthly net-subscriber addition war again for the month of November, marking the the seven consecutive victory for the former Vodafone operator! The company gained a total growth of 191,600 subscribers, or nearly double the combined results of KDDI, which added a net 65,400 subscribers, and DoCoMo with 48,200 net additions. DoCoMo is still, by far, the market leader with 53 million customers, followed by KDDI with almost 30 million and Softbank Mobile now at 17.4 million.
Aside from the almost non-existent impact of mobile number portability, the flat-rate voice driven price war here will certainly be one of the most significant operator stories of 2007. While the Japan market had never seen a #3 carrier win the monthly net additions race before — even once — now SoftBank Mobile has done it 7x running. Congrats to the SBM crew in Shiodome.. it’s a fair bet that customer retention strategies will start to become an even stronger focus in 2008.