(Kyodo News International via NewsEdge) New subscriptions to NTT DoCoMo's mobile phone service in November were outnumbered by cancellations by 17,500 subscribers, the first ever net decrease in the company's subscriber numbers.
Japan's biggest cellphone operator blamed the outcome on a flight of subscribers to rivals, following the introduction of number portability on Oct. 24.
In separate announcements the same day, rivals KDDI Corp. and Softbank Mobile reported net gains of 324,900 and 68,700, respectively, in subscriber numbers in November.
Number portability, which allows mobile phone users to keep their numbers when switching operators, benefited KDDI, which scored a net increase of 217,500 subscribers.
Cancellations outnumbered new subscriptions by 160,000 for NTT DoCoMo and by 53,900 for Softbank Mobile.
Softbank Mobile, despite the adverse effect of the portability system, posted a net increase in the overall number of subscribers as it won new corporate subscribers each using a large number of cellphones.
Meanwhile, some 680,000 subscribers, or only about 0.7% of all 94 million subscriptions, switched cellphone operators by the end of November under the number portability system.
The number of switchovers, which an industry official described as "fewer than expected," were 200,000 for October and 480,000 for November. At the current pace, the number will come to around 6 million at the end of this year.
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