Japans largest mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo generated flat profits in 4Q10 on the back of lower revenues caused by a loss of market share to its rivals.
Net profit for the carrier’s third fiscal quarter of 134.2 billion yen (€1.1 billion) was largely unchanged from the 134.6 billion yen made the previous year, however revenues fell 2.3% to 1.071 trillion yen as the firm lost share to Softbank.
DoCoMo was unable to match Softbank’s iPhone sales with its own line of smartphones, which includes the Samsung Galaxy S and Sony Ericsson Xperia, Nikkei.com reported.
Smartphones play a major part of DoCoMo’s strategy, president Ryuji Yamada told WSJ.com
The carrier sold 1.26 million smartphone devices in the nine months to end-December and tips full year sales to exceed 2.5 million by end-March – accounting for a third of total device sales for the year.
DoCoMo forecasts full-year net profit of 497 billion yen, operating profit of 840 billion yen and revenue of 4.209 trillion yen.