"Dead souls" help Softbank to look good in investors' eyes

Financial Times reports that "a change in the way Softbank counts its subscriber numbers saved it from having to declare a net reduction in October, raising doubts whether the Japanese group can turn round the ailing mobile business it bought from Vodafone Japan in March."

Apparently, what executives at Softbank did was to extend the period for which they counted inactive users from six months to a year. As a result, the October numbers were increased by 30,000-35,000. According to Financial Times, "without the change, Softbank's reported net additions of 23,800 subscribers to 15,330,800 in October would have been replaced by a net loss of at lest 5,000 subscribers, the first since May 2005, when Vodafone still owned the business."

Generally, the industry practice in Japan is to use three months as the cut-off period for inactive users.