Japan’s mobile phone market: 2006 results

Japan finished 2006 with a 71.8% wireless penetration rate, which translates to 91.8 million people. Obviously, with the increase of the penetration rate, the net additions are slowing down with each year – 5.5m in 2005 versus 4.8m in 2006.

In 2006, the wireless market in Japan was dominated by DoCoMo with 51.1m users, trailed by KDDI with 25.4m of combined au and Tu-ka user bases, leaving Vodafone KK (now Softbank Mobile) on the third place with 15.2m customers.
The area, in which KDDI outperformed DoCoMo is ARPU, reaching JPY7,040 compared with DoCoMo’s JPY6,910. Vodafone traditionally finished in third place with JPY5,890.
Handset shipments have actually increased in 2006 hitting 48.7 million units compared with 44.8 million in the previous year, but less than 51 million handsets shipped in 2004.