TOKYO-Fiscal year 2002 financial earnings released by the No. 1 and No. 2 Japanese mobile-phone carriers, NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Corp., reflected a focus on profitability and high expectations for third-generation wireless services this year.
DoCoMo reported a $1.8 billion profit, well up from the previous year’s loss of $994 million. KDDI, meanwhile, reported net profits of $491 million, up from last year’s $111 million profit.
DoCoMo said its i-mode handsets now have 37.8 million subscribers, 86 percent of its total customers. KDDI said its 3G phone subscribers grew to 6.81 million people and announced it plans to launch an upgraded 3G phone in the fall.
For the current fiscal year, ending March 2004, DoCoMo expects to achieve a net profit of $5.3 billion and KDDI expects to report a profit of $607 million.
