NTT Docomo, Japan’s largest mobile carrier, lost the largest number of subscribers on record despite offering the iPhone for the first time.
The cellco lost a net total of 66,800 users in September, while rivals SoftBank and KDDI added 270,700 and 232,700 respectively. That drove Docomo’s market share down to 46%, compared with 52% in 2008.
The company blame its losses on customers who delayed purchases until after Apple’s new models ‘ the first, apart from iPads, that Docomo will sell – went on sale on September 20. And even at that point, there was insufficient stock of the handsets, said a spokesperson, who also highlighted aggressive marketing strategies by rivals.
Docomo still has a hefty market lead, with 61.8m subscribers as of last month, followed by KDDI with 39m and SoftBank with 34m. But it has suffered from its slow response to the rise of open smartphones in Japan, replacing the country’s traditional reliance on high performance but proprietary handsets commissioned by, and optimized for, each carrier, often by local vendors. Softbank, the first cellco to adopt the iPhone, accounted for 39.5% of sales of the new iPhone 5S and 5C models, according to BCN data, while Docomo sold 32% and KDDI 28.5%.