Softbank says the loss was due to one-time costs, including the launch of the new hikari service. Though this was a rough quarter, their yearly profit was down only 3.7 percent, which was slightly better than DoCoMo’s drop of 3.9 percent.
DoCoMo is exclusively a mobile phone operator. Softbank is involved in a wide range of markets but its core business, mobile phones, seems healthy. Softbank has been leading the mobile industry in new mobile contracts for 23 straight months.
With regards to the iPhone, Softbank has continued to be aggressive. They keep lowering the barrier to an iPhone every few months. First they lowered starting data rates to ¥1029, then came the iPhone for Everybody campaign, and just two days ago they cut their starting data rate again, this time to ¥490.
