Softbank’s iPhone Coup
Posted by: Kenji Hall on July 11
EXCERPT: NTT DoCoMo’s top brass must be kicking themselves right about now. Japan’s top mobile operator lost out to Softbank in the contest to sell Apple’s iPhone 3G, allowing the third-largest operator to bask in today’s hype and headlines. The iPhone’s arrival in Japan was front-page news in the evening editions of three of the country’s four major dailies.
But DoCoMo stands to lose more than just a little publicity. One fourth of DoCoMo’s 53 million subscribers in Japan account for 80% of the carrier’s data traffic, according to one industry insider who requested anonymity. Those 13 million, who spend a lot of time firing off emails and browsing the Internet, are DoCoMo’s best customers. They are the reason the carrier’s revenues aren’t declining at a faster rate. They also happen to be the most likely to benefit from the bigger screen and easy-to-use Net browser of an iPhone. Imagine if all 13 million of these DoCoMo subscribers suddenly decided to switch carriers.
The scoreboard would read: Softbank 32 million, DoCoMo 40 million. (KDDI has 30 million.)
Full article > HERE
