SoftBank proves a third player can pack a punch

摘要

January was the ninth consecutive month that SoftBank Mobile won Japan's net-subscription-addi-tions battle, a daunting fact for market leader NTT DoCoMo, whose dominance is far less stable than in the I-mode-fueled glory days of 2002, when it seemed unshakeable. In April 2006, plenty of industry watchers doubt-ed whether Japanese Internet giant SoftBank would be able to turn around Vodafone Japan after it paid US$15.5 billion for the distant-third-ranked player. But the skeptics have been proved spectacularly wrong, with SoftBank Mobile having turned the market on its head. In January, SoftBank garnered a staggering 66.2% of the country's net additions, giving it an overall 117.7% market share, with 17.8 million subscribers. Its subscription base grew 13% in 2007, with 2.1 million net additions, coming extremely close to sec-ond-ranked KDDI's 2.3 million. SoftBank Mobile now accounts for more than half of SoftBank's total revenues and the majority of its profits.