Japan's SoftBank Corporation gains more subscribers

Japan’s third largest mobile phone company, Softbank Corporation (TYO:9984) has out smarted its two major rivals- NTT DoCoMo Inc. (TYO:9437) and KDDI Corporation (TYO:9433), by luring more subscribers in the first four month of 2008. Till April, Softbank signed up 192,900 subscribers while NTT DoCoMo Incorporation 96000 and KDDI lost 118,700 subscribers. Reuters reports:

Softbank has been luring users away from rivals with an aggressive price-cutting strategy since it bought Vodafone Group's (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research) Japan mobile unit in 2006. It expanded its customer base by nearly a fifth last business year.

That forced DoCoMo, which holds about half the market, and KDDI to offer discounts as well, fuelling a price war in a mature market where the number of subscribers has reached 107 million people, or about 85 percent of Japan's population.

In March, after KDDI’s Tu-Ka brand was stopped, the company observed a decrease in its subscriber number but the Au brand added 115,400 new customers last month.

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Reuters

Japan