The Latest Japan Mobile Operator Forecast for 4Q08 Reveals that EBITDA Margins are...

The Latest Japan Mobile Operator Forecast for 4Q08 Reveals that EBITDA Margins are Under Pressure in Japan as Competition Heats Up

DUBLIN, Ireland--(Business Wire)--
Research and Markets
(http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7f0183/4q_2008_japan_mobi)
has announced the addition of IE Market Research Corp.'s new report
"4Q 2008 Japan Mobile Operator Forecast, 2008 - 2010" to their
offering.

"Despite high and growing data ARPU in the Japanese market (now
38.8% of service revenue), service revenue growth in Japan continues
to decline," said Koichi Miyazawa, Principal Research Associate at
IEMR. Service revenues have deteriorated to -5.9% YoY in 2Q08, down
from -3.3% in 1Q08 and -2% growth in 4Q07. "The decline in service
revenue reflects mainly a decline in revenue per minute achieved by
Japanese operators. Industry-wide voice revenue per minute declined by
-16.8% in 2Q08, double the declines experienced in 1Q08," said Mr.
Miyazawa.

"There are a number of things going well in Japan's Mobile
Operator space. Data ARPU continued to grow strongly in 2Q08, which to
us is remarkable, considering that Japan already leads the world on
this metric," said Nizar Assanie, Vice President of Research. "Japan
also is a country with one of the lowest churn rates in the world, and
its operators have shown a remarkable tendency to margin expansion,
which in 2Q08 increased by 470 bps industry-wide," said Mr. Assanie.

This Japan Mobile Operator Forecast covers up to 65 financial and
operational metrics on five wireless operators. Notable highlights of
the 4Q08 Japan Mobile Operator Forecast include:

- Japan remains the country with the lowest churn rate (0.7% in
2Q08), down 40 bps across all operators. DoCoMo is the world leader in
terms of its churn rate, which was only 0.5% in 2Q08.

- Japanese operators showed solid margin expansion in 2Q08,
averaging 470bps. Both DoCoMo and Softbank saw strong margin gains.

- While ARPU declined across operators, both the ARPU decline and
margin expansion reflect the introduction of new billing plans. Mobile
operators in Japan have increased handset prices and lowered monthly
basic charges on two-year contracts.

- Market shares (by subscribers) of major operators will remain
roughly the same over the next several years, although we expect
Softbank to pick up some market share losses by NTT DoCoMo. Our model
is forecasting that NTT DoCoMo, KDDI (au), Softbank Mobile, and
WILLCOM (PHS) will have approximately 48.9%, 28.6%, 18.0% and 4.6% of
the subscriber market in Japan, respectively.

- Consumers in Japan will continue to see the highest levels of
charges in East Asia. Our model continues to forecast ARPU levels of
US$ 50.05 per user per month in 2010. Within Japan's operator space,
KDDI (au) will receive the highest ARPU of US$ 54.77 in 2010.

- The operator that will enjoy the highest EBITDA margin in 2010
is NTT DoCoMo at 40.6%. On the other hand, KDDI (au) and Softbank
Mobile will have much lower EBITDA margins of 27.6% and 28.7%
respectively.

IEMR's Global Mobile Operator Forecast covers up to 65 operational
metrics of 213 mobile operators in 50+ countries, making up 80% of the
world's population. Forecasts are based on our proprietary,
country-specific forecasting models. These models deploy multiple
regression analysis and cross-impact matrices that estimate
relationships between subscriber data, technology use and deployment
data, overall economic and demographic changes expected in a
particular country; and relate these to company operational and
financial metrics.

Key Topics Covered:

- Charts 1-68 Results & Forecasts for: CY04-CY10

- Charts 69-136 Quarterly Results for: Jun 05 - Jun 08

Companies Mentioned:

- NTT DoCoMo

- KDDI

- Softbank Mobile

For more information visit
http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/7f0183/4q_2008_japan_mobi.

Research and Markets
Laura Wood, Senior Manager
press@researchandmarkets.com
Fax from USA: 646-607-1907
Fax from rest of the world: +353-1-481-1716

Copyright Business Wire 2008