Comments on: MNP – event or non-event?

By: JT

JT — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 10:08:07 +0000

I am still struggling to sign up. Took my 4th trip to Roppongi Softbank last night. Its a real mix of foreigners from everywhere in that place. All the staff speak English, and the even have a gaijin behind the counter. Dont know what happened, but I almost got myself in the middle of a fight between a very large African looking bloke and a small Japanese ossan looking bloke. Lucky the building is next to the cop-shop.

Anyhow, at 724pm, after waiting about 15 minutes in the queue (again), they announced no more upgrades for the day. So I missed out again. I reckon I might choose a more stable store next time. Are there any others close to Roppongi?

By: Red

Red — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 09:43:30 +0000

Yes. The gross/net split numbers were pretty interesting, too. Apparently they had a total of 99,000 new sign ups and 71,000 cancellations (or a net increase of 28,000.) It’s amazing how big the real numbers are behind the “net numbers” that each company announces.

By: Mr. Mori

Mr. Mori — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 09:11:49 +0000

Did he say what the gross/net numbers were?

By: Red

Red — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 08:22:15 +0000

Thanks Mr. Mori. Actually, Softbank just had a meeting with the press tonight to discuss it’s first half update. Son mentioned that they have already had 28,000 net adds in the first week of November. That’s more than they had in the whole month of October!! Given that everyone thought he’d be a net loser from MNP, he seems to be hanging in there okay.

By: Mr. Mori

Mr. Mori — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 07:47:36 +0000

Well it looks like the net adds for October were announced today. The folks at DoCoMo won’t be too happy. Au won 200,000 new subs, DoCoMo won 41,000 new subs and Softbank pulled in 24,000. It’s been a while since DoCoMo and Softbank had similar numbers. Although MNP was only in action for a week but it is starting to take effect. To put the numbers in context, DoCoMo has averaged 160,000 new net subs each month over the last half a year. It’s a bit of a shame that Softbank had all of their computer problems over the last 10 days. Next numbers should be a more accurate representation…

By: Gerard

Gerard — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:29:52 +0000

Thanks for the great info there…..though watch out for the Zero yen advertising. You actually pay the subsidised charge for the handset in installments…the Zero yen means you dont have to cough up the cash on the day you sign up!

By: Gold

Gold — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 07:07:45 +0000

URL reattached

By: Gold

Gold — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 07:06:42 +0000

In overseas markets, especially in the US number portability has after an initial impact, not effected market share as much as everyone expected. I suspect Japan will be the same.

“Number portability was introduced in Europe in 2000, the U.S. in 2003, and Korea in 2004, so Japan has been slightly behind the pace. At a glance, it seems as though this will add to the battle for market share between both the old and new mobile companies, and initially this may be the case. However given the fact that users will still have to change their email addresses and get used to a different handset, it is hard to tell how quick the novelty may wear off.”

http://www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=1483&page=1