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TOKYO, JAPAN - Japan's largest mobile telephone operator, NTT DoCoMo Inc., said Tuesday its profits fell in the nine months to December as it continued to struggle amid an industry price war.
But NTT DoCoMo maintained its forecasts for earnings to rise slightly for the full fiscal year to March, saying its efforts to prevent customers defecting to rival operators appeared to be paying off.
The company, a unit of telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., has had a tough time since Japan introduced "number portability" a year ago, which lets customers switch carriers without changing their telephone numbers.
Net profit dropped by 6.7 percent to 376.50 billion yen (3.53 billion dollars) in the nine months to December, the first three quarters of the financial year, a company statement said.
Operating profit fell by 7.7 percent to 625.00 billion yen as revenue dipped 2.1 percent to 3.52 trillion yen.
NTT DoCoMo said it had introduced new discount plans in the third quarter and was seeing "tangible results", with fewer customers fleeing into the arms of rival cellphone operators KDDI and Softbank.
But the discounts had an impact on mobile services revenue, causing overall profits to decline, it added.
DoCoMo said industry competition was "expected to remain harsh" but it aimed to cope by making mobile telephones an even more integral part of people's lives.
The company still expects net profits for the full year to March to increase by 4.1 percent to 476 billion yen and operating profit to inch up 0.8 percent to 780 billion yen, despite a 2.5 percent drop in revenue to 4.67 trillion yen.
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