Japan's KDDI has reported an 85% increase in third-quarter net profit to 100.49 billion yen ($1.11 billion), thanks to strong smartphone sales and FTTH subscriber gains.
Consolidated revenue increased 9.5% year-on-year to 969.9 billion yen, of which around 620 billion yen came from KDDI's telecom businesses.
Handset-related revenues swelled 20% to nearly 253 billion yen. Mobile service revenue for the quarter grew 1.2% to $398.2 billion yen.
Fixed-line revenues meanwhile reached 93.6 billion yen - from 82.6 billion a year ago - on the back of strong FTTH subscriber gains.
Mobile unit au added 1.71 million subscribers for the first nine months of its financial year, up from 1.3 million a year earlier. The company ended the quarter with 38.8 million mobile subs.
But au's ARPU for the third quarter continued to shrink, falling 6.5% year on year to 4,220 yen.
Based on its Q3 results, KDDI has hiked its forecast for full-year operating revenues by 50 billion yen to 3.63 trillion. But its net profit forecast has been cut by 15% to 235 billion yen.
In a presentation to investors, KDDI said it aims to move to an “income growth phase” starting next fiscal year.
KDDI has also revealed plans for a two-for-one stock split aimed at improving the liquidity of its shares, as well as expanding its investor base by making it cheaper to buy in.
The split will take effect at the start of April. After the process, KDDI will have 896.9 million shares on issue, and 1.4 billion total authorized shares. At time of writing, KDDI shares ended Monday's trading at 6,580 yen.