14 December 2004

Japan's domestic shipments of mobile telephone handsets plunged 42% on year in October to 2.40 million units, extending the string of declines to ten months, says the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association.

The low level of shipments represents a deep slump compared with last year, when Sharp Corp. (6753.TO) and other makers were racing to keep up with strong demand for phones equipped with digital cameras and other bells and whistles.

The association said it expects conditions to improve as third-generation mobile phones catch on with consumers lured by new services, such as high-speed data transmission allowing users to swap photos quickly.

Excluding personal handyphone system, or PHS, handsets, cellphone shipments were down 42% at 2.33 million units. Shipments of PHS handsets fell 39% on year to 64,000 units.

For the April-October period, domestic shipments of mobile phones were down 21% at 24.43 million units. Of this total, 24.04 million units were cellphones, down 20% on year, while 388,000 units were PHS handsets, down 60%.

More people signed up for mobile phone services, with the net increase in the number of subscriber contracts totaling 325,000.

Total contracts for all mobile phone services stood at 89.45 million, up 0.4% from September. That was equivalent to 70.5% of Japan's population.