DoCoMo reports near 12% rise in first-quarter profits

Japan’s leading mobile operator by subscribers, NTT DoCoMo, has reported an 11.7% year-on-year rise in net income for its fiscal first quarter ending 30 June 2011, aided by rising demand from users for smartphones. The cellco reported net profits of JPY158.7 billion (USD2.05 billion) in the period under review, as it added 1.9 million net new users for a mid-2011 total of 58.4 million. Moreover, the operator said it sold 4.64 million mobile handsets in the April-June quarter, of which 1.3 million were smartphones. On a less positive note, DoCoMo said increased sales of promotional packages had a negative impact on quarterly revenues which dipped 3.9% year-on-year to JPY1.05 trillion, although operating profit was up 11.3% at JPY267.7 billion. Going forward, DoCoMo plans to focus its marketing efforts on foregrounding data-based services – such as texting and gaming – and equipment sales revenues to improve ‘efforts to strengthen sales of smartphones’.