DoCoMo grows Q1 profit by 38.1%

Japan’s NTT DoCoMo grew its net profit for the June quarter by 38.1% year-on-year as the operator made progress adapting to an evolving business environment.

The operator reported a net income for its fiscal first quarter of 206.9 billion yen ($2.01 billion), on the back of a 31.8% increase in operating revenues to 1.08 trillion yen.

Operating revenues from the operator’s core telecoms business grew 1.9% to 878.6 billion yen despite a decrease in equipment sales revenues.

The company ended the quarter with 71.6 million mobile customers, registering new LTE subscriptions of 2.4 million.

During the quarter, DoCoMo expanded the coverage of its Premium 4G branded LTE-Advanced network to 1,203 cities across Japan and 30,900 base stations, and added the 3.5-GHz carrier to further improve network quality.

DoCoMo’s quarterly report states that “the environment surrounding our business has changed significantly,” with competition intensifying as a result of the market entry of MVNOs and the government’s pro-competition policy.

“In addition, technical advancements in the areas of cloud services, IoT, big data and artificial intelligence (AI), etc., and new policy developments such as the full liberalization of the electricity

retail market, brought about active competition and collaboration with new players from other industries, accelerating competition in new markets that transcend the conventional boundaries of telecommunications business.”

In response to this, DoCoMo aims to use the current financial year to make “a vibrant leap toward further growth,” concentrating on reinforcing its core telecommunications business while expanding into “smart life” and other areas, the operator said.