TOKYO-Keiji Tachikawa, president of NTT DoCoMo, on Thursday said it will be difficult for the mobile carrier to clear its own sales target for its third-generation (3G) FOMA service. NTT DoCoMo is targeting to sell 320,000 FOMA terminals by the end of March. The number of subscribers for FOMA as of the end of December 2002 was 152,000.
KDDI, NTT DoCoMo’s rival carrier, has already won 5 million subscribers for its 3G service based on cdma2000 1x services. NTT DoCoMo revised downward its sales target by March 2003 from an initial 1.38 million units to 320,000 units.
Releases of new FOMA handsets were delayed due to technical problems, which contributed to slow subscriber growth, Tachikawa said. However, he added that the latest FOMA handsets, the N2051 and F2051, have sold well since their launch.
