The total number of mobile phone subscribers in Japan stood at 58 million as of the end of December, according to preliminary numbers collected from Japan's three main providers -- NTT DoCoMo (news - web sites) Inc (9437.T), DDI Corp (9433.T), which is better known as KDDI, and J-Phone, Japan Telecom Co Ltd's (9434.T) wireless unit.

That is a 19.66 percent increase from 48.46 million a year earlier, and does not include data from the PHS (personal handyphone system), a more limited cellular phone service.

Kate Lye, a telecoms analyst at UBS Warburg, said the strong growth was due to the introduction of new handsets with color screens, as well as a seasonal boost since many Japanese receive semi-annual bonus payments in December.

Of the total 58 million, 26.79 million subscribers had Internet-enabled mobile phones, up 11 percent from November.

Number one wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo said it had 34.22 million subscribers at the end of December, of which 17.16 million used 'i-mode', the hugely popular Internet-access system that allows Web-surfing on business card-sized screens.

DoCoMo is expected to roll out Java-enabled mobile phones for its i-mode service in January, adding more features to its services.

Java is a versatile programming language that will boost security for mobile phone-based commercial transactions.

Second-place KDDI, whose mobile service operates under the brand ``au,'' made a comeback in December after sluggish growth for most of 2000.

It increased its subscriber base by 197,500 in December, a faster pace than the 10,000-70,000 users seen in recent months, to bring its total to 10.48 million. Including subscribers from a separate regional unit, the total for KDDI comes to 14.32 million.

KDDI's Internet service, called EZweb, also hit a milestone of five million, garnering 5.17 million subscribers.

Number-three J-Phone, which has been marketing aggressively with a wide range of handsets with color screens, added 156,700 new subscribers to bring its total mobile phone user base to 9.47 million.

Together with PHS, the total number of mobile phone users in Japan reached 63.8 million in 2000, or nearly a half of the country's population.