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Softbank Still Leading Japanese Market for Annual Net Additions
The total Japanese customer base was up 0.37m in August to 109.27m. Annual growth stood at 4.6%, down from 5.6% a year earlier.
July saw a momentous event in the Japanese market: for the first time in 27 months, Softbank did not top the market for net additions. Market leader NTT DoCoMo claimed the crown, adding 144k to Softbank's 138k. Hardly a stunning reversal, but an important psychological victory perhaps. In August, however, Softbank was back on top with 115k to DoCoMo's 113k.
With little hope of catching DoCoMo, which finished August with 55.12m compared to its base of 21.21m, the more important battle for Softbank is with KDDI. July saw another landmark, as it closed to within 10m of its larger rival, which finished August with 31.13m. Softbank's annual gain of 1.72m was almost 1m higher than KDDI's, but it will take some time to catch up.
Posted to the site on 23rd September 2009
This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World.
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