Japan stocks gain led by exporters, DoCoMo jumps

(Updates to midsession)

TOKYO, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Japanese stocks rose across the board on Tuesday, with exporters such as Sony Corp (6758.T) particularly in favour on a soft yen, while bank shares gained on news from Merrill Lynch MER.N that helped spark a rally in U.S. peers.

One notable stock was NTT DoCoMo Inc (9437.T), which jumped more than 3 percent, after the Nikkei business daily said it would tie up with Google Inc (GOOG.O) with a view to adopting the Web giant's search and email features in its mobile phone Internet service. [ID:nT216250]

The benchmark Nikkei average .N225 ended the morning session up 1.8 percent or 272.43 points at 15,529.43 after hitting its highest point since Dec. 14. In the past week it shed 1.7 percent.

The broader TOPIX index gained 1.8 percent or 25.76 points to 1,494.96. (Reporting by Aiko Hayashi)