Contracts Near 80 mil. in Feb.
The total number of mobile phone and personal handy-phone system (PHS) subscription contracts has neared 80 million, with the number standing at 79.85 million at the end of February, up 0.5% from the previous month, a telecommunications association said Friday. In terms of the three main mobile phone companies, the NTT DoCoMo Inc. group had 43.23 million mobile phone contracts, followed by the KDDI Corp. group at 13.72 million and the J-Phone Co. group at 13.62 million, it said.
J-Phone closed the gap with KDDI to around 96,000 with its prepaid mobile phone handsets launched Feb. 10 selling well, according to the association.
COMMENTARY: J-Phone seems to be doing well with its prepaid handsets. In a mail to press and analysts last week, J-Phone PR gave the following subscriber status report (no mention of the “Enjourno” pre-paid handset):
| | Feb. 28 | Jan. 31 | Increase |
| Subscribers | 13,621,000 | 13,456,200 | 164,800 |
| PDC | 13,611,100 | 13,451,500 | 159,600 |
| J-Sky | 11,883,200 | 11,718,900 | 164,300 |
| Sha-mail | 8,615,000 | 8,295,700 | 319,300 |
| Movie S-M | 1,582,800 | 1,464,900 | 117,900 |
| Java | 6,049,200 | 5,807,600 | 241,600 |
| VF Global Stnd | 9,900 | 4,700 | 5,200 |