DoCoMo on track with 3G service
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NTT DoCoMo had third-quarter profit of about $1.3 billion.
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TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's top mobile phone operator, says it is on track to meet its full year earnings target as it steadily adds subscribers to its high-speed Internet-capable service.
Asia's second-most valuable company after Toyota Motor said it would be helped by the launch this month of a new line of phones for its third-generation (3G) FOMA service.
Reuters calculations based on DoCoMo's nine-month results issued on Wednesday showed the company had a consolidated net profit of 137.82 billion yen ($1.3 billion) on revenues of 1.29 trillion yen for the three-month period ended in December.
Consolidated operating profit for the quarter worked out to 252.87 billion yen.
DoCoMo, publishing nine-month results for the first time, provided no year-earlier comparisons.
Based on the nine-month figures, third quarter net earnings were down about 14 percent from the second quarter.
DoCoMo, which last week met its full year target of two million FOMA customers, also revised those expectations to 2.4 million by the end of April.
"Going forward, we hope to introduce compelling new FOMA features that will encourage data usage, so revenue-per-user will eventually settle down above the level of our previous generation service," DoCoMo Senior Executive Vice President Shiro Tsuda said at a news conference.
After a slow start when it launched 3G in 2001, DoCoMo is betting 2004 will be a banner year as it rolls out new phones enabled for fast-action games, e-mails with animated graphics and phone calls accompanied by an animated image that can be controlled to show various emotions.
While it has been overshadowed by No. 2 rival KDDI Corp, which beat DoCoMo in net customer additions for the first time in 2003, DoCoMo said it was gaining FOMA customers thanks to a wider phone selection, increased coverage and improvements in features such as battery life, size and weight.
The company said in October that it expected a full-year net profit of 621 billion yen on steady per-user revenue and brisk growth of its subscriber base.
Shares of DoCoMo are down 1.35 percent at midday Thursday to 220,000 yen. The broader market, measured by the Nikkei 225, is just in the red, down 0.03 percent.
Copyright 2004
Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
