Data from Wireless World Forum?s ?Japan Mobile Market? statistical handbook shows that future growth in the Japanese mobile market will be centred on the under 14s and over 55s as 100% penetration is reached in all other age groups.

Penetration in the 5-9 year-old age group will more than double from 29% in 2004 to reach 64% in 2007 but the largest number of new subscribers in 2006 will come from the 55-65 age group, with 1.62 million new customers.

Blended ARPU will continue to decline from $58 pcm in 2005 to $57 pcm by 2007 but data ARPU will rise from $15 pcm to $17 pcm over the same period as content markets continue to grow. The mobile music market will be worth $1.35 bn by 2007. The market for games will also grow, with the majority of games revenue being generated by 20-30 year-olds.

Despite falling ARPU, DoCoMo and au by KDDI saw both revenues and market share increase in 2005 due to increases in their subscriber bases. Vodafone KK continues to struggle as falling numbers of subscribers hit revenues and has a share of only 5.4% of the 3G market.

The next two years will be landmark years for the Japanese mobile market. The introduction of MNP combined with the first new entrants for 12 years will challenge the existing hold of the operators over the market.

Data Contained in the Report on:

• NTT DoCoMo
• au by KDDI
• Vodafone KK
• Tu-Ka by KDDI
• Willcom
• Astel