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Japan's domestic shipments of mobile phone handsets jumped in July from June as demand for more advanced mobile phone services grew, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association said Tuesday. Shipments of cellular and car-use mobile phones rose on month for the second straight month, increasing 18.4% in July to 4.09 million units, the association said. Some consumers switched to new high-speed third-generation handsets that enable them to download and play video games and watch television. Mobile phone service companies such as NTT DoCoMo Inc. (9437.TO) are rapidly increasing their 3G handset lineups. Mobile phone firms are also attracting customers by offering fixed-rate monthly fees for data transmission. But in on-year terms, shipments fell 19.9% from July 2003, down for the seventh month running as demand for handsets equipped with digital cameras wanes. Overall shipments of mobile phones, including personal handyphone system, or PHS, handsets, totaled 4.136 million units, down 21.3% on year, JEITA said. The net increase in the number of subscribers to mobile phone services in July was 380,300, up 13.4% from June. Total contracts for all mobile phone services in July stood at 88.12 million, up 0.4% from June. That was equivalent to 69.4% of Japan's population.
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