TOKYO-NTT DoCoMo said it forecasts only 320,000 FOMA third-generation subscribers by the end of March 2003, a decrease from its early predictions of more than 1 million subscribers by end-March. NTT DoCoMo launched FOMA service in October 2001 and uptake has been much less than expected.
Keiji Tachikawa, president of NTT DoCoMo, at a recent press conference attributed the sluggish sales for FOMA to a lack of killer content and short battery life of FOMA handsets. The operator had 135,700 FOMA subscribers at end-September.
The company is planning to increase its FOMA coverage area and enhance its content to reverse the slow demand for its W-CDMA services. The company’s average revenue per user for FOMA was about $60. ARPU generated purely from i-mode services was $17.30 for the second fiscal quarter ending Sept. 30.
The operator still commands a 58.5-percent share of the Japanese cellular market.
KDDI, the second-largest mobile operator, has won 510,300 new subscribers in the quarter for its 3G services, pushing up its cdma2000 1x subscribers to 2.65 million at end-September.
