NTT DoCoMo Mulls Ending "mova" Phone Sales To Focus On 3G"

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- NTT DoCoMo said Friday it is considering ending sales of its second-generation "mova" cellphones to focus on its 3G "FOMA" phones.

With 3G mobile phones, users can enjoy higher quality and greater communication speed for services such as transmitting motion pictures.

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile phone service firm by subscribers, is considering the move at a time when Japanese mobile phone service firms expect competition to intensify when number portability, which will let cellphone users to keep their existing phone numbers even when they switch service providers, begins later this year in Japan.

Mobile phone firms expect number portability to enable users to switch services more easily and will represent both a business opportunity and a threat.

DoCoMo's rival KDDI Corp. has already begun selling only 3G phones.

NTT DoCoMo has already started shifting its focus to the 3G service.

According to the latest available data, the number of subscribers for its 2G service totaled 26.83 million subscribers at the end of April, accounting for more than half the company's combined 2G and 3G mobile phone subscribers.

But, the number represents a decline by 846,500 from a month earlier.

Subscribers for the 3G service, on the other hand, rose by 1.10 million from a month earlier to 24.56 million at the end of April.

The Yomiuri Shimbun earlier Friday reported that NTT DoCoMo will by next year stop selling its second-generation mova cellphones.

A DoCoMo spokesman said his company will decide when to halt 2G handset sales depending on demand.

-By Yoshio Takahashi, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; yoshio.takahashi@dowjones.com

-Edited by Chris Gallagher

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 26th May 2006