Japan - Mobile Market - Overview, Statistics and Forecasts

Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd, March 2013, Pages: 35

Into 2013 there were over 130 million mobile subscribers in Japan with around 97% of these using 3G services. The overall Japanese mobile market remains in a dynamic period of activity. NTT DoCoMo still has a dominant market share, benefitting from its monopoly status years before. However, in close pursuit are KDDI, Softbank and smaller operator eMobile. While fighting for a bigger share in a saturated market, the operators continue to put more weight behind their data services to make up for declining revenue from phone calls. Softbank initially took advantage of its position as the sole carrier for the iPhone and the iPad in Japan. NTT has seen strong subscriber uptake since launching LTE services in December 2010 and is progressively shifting its subscriber base away from 3G services while introducing new data plans.

This report provides an overview of Japanese mobile technologies and mobile data and content services. Providing extensive market, technology and operator based statistics, forecasting on mobile subscribers is also provided up to 2018.

Key Developments:
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ (MIC) review of mobile bandwidth allocations in the 2000MHz band by 2020, as it seeks to cater for the anticipated explosion in demand for mobile and wireless data traffic; Wi-Fi investments to cater for mobile offload strategies; launch by Softbank of its ‘Ultra Speed’ HSPA+ service; launch of NTT DoCoMo’s LTE network, branded ‘Xi’ which is to cover 70% of the population by March 2015; LTE-Advanced license granted to NTT DoCoMo for field experiments; eMobile launch of LTE and subsequent acquisition by Softbank; establishment of the Softbank affiliate Wireless City Planning to take over next-generation PHS service operations from Willcom; first sales of unlocked handsets; Softbank loses iPhone exclusivity; Amazon enters as MVNO; smartphone sales exceed feature phone sales for the first time; spectrum allocations in 900MHz and 700Mhz frequency bands

Companies covered in this report include:
NTT DoCoMo; KDDI; Softbank; eMobile; Willcom; Wireless City Planning; Google; Apple

1. Synopsis

2. Mobile communications market
2.1 Background
2.2 Mobile statistics
2.2.1 Mobile subscribers 1995-2013
2.2.2 Mobile subscribers by operator
2.3 Market status 2012
2.4 Differentiation efforts

3. Mobile technologies
3.1 PDC
3.2 CDMA
3.3 PHS
3.4 Third Generation (3G) mobile
3.5 LTE (Long-Term Evolution)/4G
3.6 LTE-Advanced

4. Mobile handset market
4.1 Smartphone adoption
4.2 Unlocked handsets
4.3 iPhone
4.4 Android
4.5 iPads
4.6 E-Readers
4.7 Tablets

5. Major mobile operators
5.1 Overview
5.2 Statistics
5.3 Forecast: Mobile subscribers 2012-2018
5.3.1 Forecast: Total mobile subscribers 2012-2018
5.4 Forecasting methodology

6. Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO)

7. Mobile services
7.1 Market background
7.2 Prepaid cards
7.3 SMS
7.4 Wi-Fi
7.5 Mobile Internet
7.5.1 NTT DoCoMo’s i-mode

8. Mobile content
8.1 Operators extend video, gaming services to competitor’s networks
8.2 Global Positioning System (GPS)
8.3 Mobile payment
8.4 Mobile banking
8.4.1 Background
8.4.2 KDDI
8.4.3 NTT DoCoMo
8.4.4 Softbank
8.5 Mobile contactless payment (NFC)
8.5.1 NTT DoCoMo
8.5.2 Softbank
8.5.3 KDDI
8.6 Mobile advertising
8.7 Mobile TV and radio
8.8 Mobile ringtone and music downloads
8.9 Mobile social gaming
8.10 M2M

9. Mobile applications
9.1 Earthquake alerts
9.2 Personal trainer
9.3 QR code readers
9.4 Environmental sensors

10. Related reports

Table 1 – Mobile subscriber, annual change and penetration rate – 1995 - 2014
Table 2 – Market share of mobile operators in Japan – December 2012
Table 3 – Mobile subscribers by system – December 2012
Table 4 – Carrier share of mobile telephone and PHS market – 2004 - 2012
Table 5 – cdmaOne, CDMA2000 1x and WCDMA subscribers – 1999 - 2012
Table 6 – PHS subscribers by carrier – 2004 – 2012
Table 7 – PHS subscribers – 1995 – 2012
Table 8 – 3G mobile subscribers by operator – December 2012
Table 9 – Japan 3G subscribers – 2001 – 2013
Table 10 – Japan LTE subscribers – 2010 - 2013
Table 11 – NTT DoCoMo LTE roadmap – 2011 – 2013; 2015
Table 12 – Number of handsets sold – 2006 - 2010
Table 13 – Google and Apple Smartphone platform audience in Japan – 2010 - 2012
Table 14 – Mobile subscribers, ARPU and churn by operator – 2004 - 2012
Table 15 – Net addition share by operator – 2006 - 2011
Table 16 – Forecast mobile subscribers and penetration lower band forecast – 2013 - 2014; 2018
Table 17 – Forecast mobile subscribers and penetration higher band forecast – 2013 - 2014; 2018
Table 18 – MVNO subscribers – 2009 - 2012
Table 19 – Prepaid mobile subscribers – December 2010
Table 20 – Mobile Internet subscribers, services and technology by provider – December 2012
Table 21 Mobile Internet subscribers by providers – 2004 - 2012
Table 22 – Mobile Internet subscribers – 2000 – 2012

Chart 1 – Japan mobile subscriber growth and population penetration – 1995 - 2014
Chart 2 – Japan 2G, 3G and LTE growth – 2000 - 2013

Exhibit 1 – Long-term evolution (LTE) roadmap in Japan – 2008 - 2012

- NTT DoCoMo
- KDDI
- Softbank
- eMobile
- Willcom
- Wireless City Planning
- Google
- Apple

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