Japan's top mobile phone operator NTT DoCoMo said on July 29 its June-quarter net profit rose 22 percent year on year, thanks to the popularity of new products and services as well as aggressive cost-cutting. Group net profit stood at 207.9 billion yen (1.9 billion dollars) while pretax profit gained 27.6 percent to 353.4 billion yen.
Sales, however, edged down 2.8 percent to 1.18 trillion yen, the company said.
"In the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2006, we worked to strengthen our after-sales support to customers," DoCoMo president Masao Nakamura said in a statement.
The number of new subscribers signed up in the period was up 20 percent year-on-year, he said, crediting strategic pricing measures including discounts to draw customers.
Those measures "could have downside pressure on revenues" but "we posted gains in operating income through extensive cost-cutting efforts."
In the year to March, the company upgraded its forecasts.
Net profit is now expected to reach 533 billion yen, compared with 497 billion yen, and pretax profit to stand at 874 billion yen, compared with an earlier forecast of 812 billion yen.
The company kept sales expectations at 4.805 trillion yen.