TOKYO-NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to revise its current forecast for 3G subscribers for this fiscal year in November following an admission that the carrier will not be able to meet the expected 1.38 million 3G subscribers by the end of March. At the end of July, DoCoMo reported 127,400 customers had signed up for its Foma service since the launch last October.
“We will review the target after the first half of the business year is over,” said Keiji Tachikawa, president and chief executive of DoCoMo. “Having seen the progress so far, we feel that we have to lower our target.
Tachikawa told a press conference that the limited service coverage of the network, short battery life of the handsets and lack of strong appeal for the handsets were factors behind the slow customer growth. Currently, the Foma service is only available in a handful of Japan’s largest cities forcing customers to carry around two handsets if they want coverage throughout the country.
Analysts also point out that DoCoMo is feeling competitive pressure from rival KDDI Corp.’s cdma2000 1x-based “au” service, which has signed up more than 1.6 million subscribers since its launch earlier this year.
