Oct 30, 2009, 11:44 GMT
Tokyo - NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's largest mobile-phone operator, said Friday that profit in its second quarter dropped 21 per cent as demand for mobile phones fell.
Net income in the July-to-September quarter fell to 137.3 billion yen (1.5 billion dollars) from 173.1 billion yen in the same period a year earlier.
Operating profit was down 17 per cent to 233.4 billion yen while sales also fell 3.4 per cent to 1.06 trillion yen, the Tokyo-based company said.
NTT DoCoMo kept its earnings forecast for the entire fiscal year unchanged at 830 billion yen in operating profit, which measures a company's earnings minus interest payments and taxes. It is seen as a gauge of a firm's earning power from ongoing operations.
It forecast its annual net profit at 493 billion yen, up 4.5 per cent from last year, while sales were expected to drop 3.9 per cent to 4.28 trillion yen.
For the first half of the fiscal year, the company said net income fell 17.9 per cent from the first six months of the past financial year to 284.7 billion yen. Sales shrank 5.4 per cent to 2.15 trillion yen.
Sales of mobile phones decreased drastically in the period, declining 14.2 per cent to 8.8 million units.
The sales drop came after NTT DoCoMo and its rivals profited from a new sales programme in the past fiscal year in which customers were encouraged to purchase new mobile-phone models that, with their higher costs and lower usage charges, have encouraged users to upgrade their phones less often.
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