Softbank Falls Most in Three Years After KDDI Iphone Report
September 22, 2011, 4:41 AM EDTBy Mariko Yasu
(Updates with closing share prices in second paragraph.)
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Softbank Corp., the sole iPhone seller in Japan, fell the most in almost three years after a magazine reported bigger rival KDDI Corp. will offer Apple Inc.’s newest version of the smartphone.
Softbank fell 12 percent to 2,282 yen at the 3 p.m. close on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, its biggest decline since November 2008. More than 31 million shares exchanged hands, compared with a six-month daily average of 7.8 million. KDDI, Japan’s second- largest mobile-phone operator, dropped 0.8 percent.
Softbank jumped ahead of KDDI and NTT DoCoMo Inc., the country’s biggest mobile carrier, in subscription growth after adding Apple’s smartphone to its lineup. The iPhone 5 may be available through KDDI as early as November, Nikkei Business magazine reported today, citing a person it didn’t identify.
Growth in Softbank’s new customers may slow after its rival starts offering the popular handset, Yusuke Tsunoda, an analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities Co. in Tokyo, said by phone today. “KDDI will probably stop losing its customers and start attracting new ones by offering the new iPhone.”
KDDI currently sells smartphones including ones that use Google Inc.’s Android software and has dropped to third place in terms of subscriber additions behind Softbank and DoCoMo.
Apple’s iPhone accounted for 50 percent of smartphones used in Japan as of March 31, while Android-based handsets accounted for 40 percent, MM Research said in July.
Smartphone Boom
Annual smartphone shipments in Japan will probably more than double to 19.9 million units in the year to March 2012 from 8.6 million in the previous 12 months, and jump to 30.6 million by March 2016, the researcher said.
“We’re not the source of information for the report” in Nikkei Business, Keiichi Sakurai, a Tokyo-based spokesman for KDDI, said by phone today, declining to comment further.
Fumihiro Ito, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Softbank, declined to comment on whether the company will offer a new iPhone model this year.
Smartphone sales will overtake those for conventional mobile phones in Japan in the year ending March 2013, the Tokyo- based researcher estimated in December.
Apple hasn’t announced when it expects to introduce the iPhone 5. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook may unveil the new phone Oct. 4, when the company is scheduled to have a media event, the AllThingsD website reported yesterday, citing people it didn’t identify.
--With assistance from Kyung Bok Cho and Kazuyo Sawa in Tokyo. Editors: Dave McCombs, Suresh Seshadri
To contact the reporter on this story: Mariko Yasu in 東京 at myasu@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net
