Japan - growth of softbank mobile

Softbank No. 1 in annual mobile subscriber growth

Softbank Mobile Corp won top spot for annual net mobile subscriber growth for the first time in fiscal 2007, according to data released by mobile phone carriers Tuesday.

Softbank Mobile beat its rivals with a net increase of 2,676,500 subscribers in the year to last month thanks to its White Plan featuring lower fees, while KDDI Corp, the au mobile phone operator, dropped to second place with a net gain of 2,150,800.

Softbank Mobile increased its annual net gain steeply from about 700,000 in the previous year, while KDDI’s net growth was down from the previous year’s 2.75 million.

NTT DoCoMo Inc ranked third with a net rise of 766,600, less than half of the previous year’s 1.48 million. EMobile Ltd, which started mobile data communications services in March last year, came fourth with 411,500.

As a result, NTT DoCoMo saw its market share in terms of total subscriptions fall to 52% from 54.4%. KDDI’s share rose to 29.5% from 29.1%, while Softbank Mobile’s share increased to 18.1% from 16.4%.

In March alone, Softbank Mobile registered net subscriber growth of 543,900, staying No. 1 for the 11th straight month, followed by KDDI with 500,500.

NTT DoCoMo started to count one subscriber with two phone numbers as two subscribers, but it came third with a net gain of 173,700. EMobile had a net increase of 130,200.