DoCoMo falls to last in subscriber adds

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Japan's largest mobile operator, NTT DoCoMo, fell to fourth and last place by new subscribers added in September, according to an industry group.

The Telecommunications Carriers Association (TCA) said DoCoMo added just 66,000 subscribers during the month, behind KDDI, which added 102,000, Softbank, with 108,000, and Emboile, with 88,000.

In August, DoCoMo had added 112,000 subscribers – just 3,000 behind Softbank, the operator with the largest net adds for the month.

With 55.1 million subscribers, DoCoMo still captures over half of Japan's mobile market (excluding PHS services) which in September reached 109.6 million customers. Including PHS services, Japan's overall mobile market grew by 0.3% to 114.1 million.

PHS operator Willcom lost 42,000 subscribers, bringing its total customer base to 4.3 million. New Wimax provider UQ communications added 21,700 customers in its first month of operation.