NTT seeks partners in Middle East and Russia

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp is eyeing ties with local firms in the Middle East and Russia to provide services and networks for Japanese companies expanding abroad, its new president said on Tuesday. Hurt by falling demand for land lines at home, Japan's biggest phone company is looking overseas for new revenues.
NTT, also the world's biggest phone operator by sales, needs local partners in countries where Japanese firms are opening new factories and offices, Satoshi Miura told Reuters in an interview. "We are the world's most advanced trend-setter in broadband," said Miura, who took the helm at NTT last week. "Our know-how will also work to expand fibre-optic networks abroad."
In Japan, the operator is trying to persuade subscribers to upgrade to its faster and more cost-efficient fibre-optic network, and raise revenues from interactive Web services. It hopes to woo 30 million users to its new cables by 2010, up from the slightly more than 6 million it had at the end of March. Overseas expansion may open up new avenues for NTT, which expects nearly no earnings growth this business year to March 2008, forecasting operating profit flat at 1.1 trillion yen.
"We do not rule out the possibility of taking a majority stake (in a foreign company), depending on the objective," Miura said. "We've learned some hard lessons from past investments, but we will not hesitate to invest where necessary."
NTT's mobile unit NTT DoCoMo Inc took big stakes in companies such as the former AT&T Wireless, KPN Mobile and Hutchison 3G UK Holdings, incurring heavy losses in 2001 after the collapse of the tech bubble.
A third-owned by the government, NTT held 796 billion yen ($6.5 billion) worth of cash and cash equivalents as of the end of March. The NTT group raised its stake in Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co to 15.5 percent, up from 14.5 percent on April 16, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. The PLDT stake is held by NTT mobile unit DoCoMo and Internet-based services unit NTT Communications.