NTT DoCoMo Wireless Subscribers Top 50 Million

ASIA Japan : NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced that subscribers to DoCoMo's mobile phone services exceeded 50 million today, about three years and 10 months after surpassing 40 million. DoCoMo subscribers refer to 2G mova®, 3G FOMA® and DoPa® Single Service customers.

In the first 10 years after DoCoMo began offering cellular services in 1979, subscribers grew at an average net rate of roughly 30,000 per year. From 1993, two years after DoCoMo launched its 2G mova service, the average annual net gain to the present time has been about four million subscribers. DoCoMo attributes this to reasons including the elimination of subscription deposits in 1993, the start of handset sales in 1994, the end of application fees in 1996 and increasingly affordable handsets along with steady improvements in the development of smaller, lighter models.

DoCoMo revolutionized the mobile market in February 1999 with the introduction of i-mode®, which transformed handsets from mere voice communication tools into mobile Internet devices.

In 2001, DoCoMo launched 3G FOMA services to offer high-speed, multimedia functionality. In July 2004, the company introduced "Osaifu-Keitai" mobile phones with wallet functions for convenient e-commerce applications.

Milestones in the growth of DoCoMo's total subscribers are as follows:

December 1979: Launch
February 1993: 1 million
April 1996: 5 million
February 1997: 10 million
October 1997: 15 million
August 1998: 20 million
June 1999: 25 million
April 2000: 30 million
February 2001: 35 million
January 2002: 40 million
August 2003: 45 million
November 2005: 50 million

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