NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan’s largest mobile carrier, has delayed an upgrade to its 3G (third-generation) network, the company said on Tuesday. The company will test its HSDPA (high speed downlink packet access) network this year but will not roll out a commercial service based on the technology before April, DoCoMo president Masao Nakamura said at the company’s financial news conference in Tokyo.
The April subscriber numbers are public and the news is mixed, at best, for Big V. Vodafone KK suffered a loss of 180,800 2G subscribers but only gained 141,300 3G users, for a net loss of 39,500 subs. This has got to be disappointing given that the March’s loss had fallen to a mere 7,400 and company management were likely hoping April would see a turnaround with the net change moving into the black.
Vodafone K.K. and bitWallet, Inc. announced today they would partner to provide Edy electronic money services to Vodafone K.K. Mobile FeliCa-compatible handsets, which are scheduled for an initial target date of October 2005. The main items of the agreement include bitWallet providing Edy electronic money clearing services to Vodafone K.K. Mobile FeliCa-compatible handsets, Edy e-money services to start when the handsets launch, and bitWallet will offer Edy e-money applications as Vodafone-compatible V-applis (these would be downloadable Java apps).
NTT DoCoMo released their financial results for the year ending 31 March earlier today, and the numbers are stellar. Despite operating revenues achieving “only” 4,844.6 bn yen, down a noticable 4% year on year, net income came in at 747.6 bn yen, up a strong 15% over last fiscal year. But the company foresees tough times ahead, predicting net income for the current fiscal year (ending 31 March 2006) to fall to 497 bn yen, a plunge of 33.5%.
KDDI has posted their financial results for the year ending 31 March 2005. The company will hold a presentation for investors today at 17:00 JST. The webcast will be held on 29 April. Access: financial highlights, financial indicators, mobile service facts via this IR webcast.
NTT DoCoMo and KDDI Corp. may say Q4 operating profit fell as they paid retailers more to lure shoppers and promote new handsets. DoCoMo’s operating profit probably dropped 83 percent to 44.4 billion yen ($420 million) in the three months ended March 31, according to the median targets of nine analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The company’s biggest rival in Japan, KDDI, may say operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, fell 6.8 percent to 53.5 billion yen.
