TOKYO-NTT has decided to liquidate its PHS (Personal Handyphone System) business, run by NTT Personal Group, with cellular subsidiary NTT DoCoMo Group taking over by year-end. DoCoMo said it has not decided yet how to deal with PHS business. But a DoCoMo spokesperson said the firm is planning to release a dual-band handset on which a subscriber could use both cellular and PHS service.
The other two PHS carriers, Astel Group and DDI Pocket, said they don’t have any plan to release such dual-band terminals partly because they are doing only PHS business and cellular business is being run by different companies, and partly because they don’t see much need for such a dual-band terminal.
Observing their rival firm’s fate, Astel and DDI decided to take different strategies to cope with the current situation.
The Astel Group, owned mainly by local electric firms, decided to shrink its business plan, while DDI Pocket maintains its expansive policy. Although the total number of PHS subscribers has been shrinking since last September, DDI’s numbers have been increasing.
“We don’t change our strategy because our sales [are] up,” said Yoichiro Tsuge, a spokesperson for DDI Pocket.
