Operating income at Japan’s third largest cellco Softbank Mobile spiked almost 60% in the nine months to December, propelled by its iPhone sales.
The firm’s operating income jumped 59.4% year-on-year to 215.1 billion yen ($2.38 billion), with net sales rising 9.9% to 1.26 trillion.
In the year to December, SoftBank Mobile took on 1.67 million mobile net adds, leading NTT DoCoMo and KDDI for the second consecutive year.
Softbank Mobile is the exclusive distributor of iPhone devices in Japan.
Softbank chairman& CEO Masayoshi Son told the Wall Street Journal that the iPhone was "the biggest contributor to third-quarter handset sales.”
He also described the iPhone as "a major contributor to growth in data communication revenue."
“ARPU for the third quarter (October to December 2009) was ¥4,200, an increase of ¥110 year-on-year, marking a turnaround to year-on-year growth,” said Softbank.
“Data ARPU rose ¥270 to ¥2,060, exceeding ¥2,000 for the first time, due to an increase in 3G subscribers, especially in data-intensive iPhone subscribers.”
Softbank also announced it has acquired a 13.7% stake in video streaming firm Ustream for $20 million.
The company is angling to increase its stake in Ustream to over 30% for a total $75 million investment.