Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, Japan’s biggest telecommunications company, said Thursday its group net profit for the April-June quarter edged up 3.4% thanks to a lower tax burden resulting from a subsidiary’s share buyback.
Net profit increased to 149.57 billion yen ($1.26 billion) from 144.68 billion yen ($1.24 billion) the same period a year earlier, the Tokyo-based company said.
NTT said a share buyback by its mobile phone unit, NTT DoCoMo, reduced the group’s tax burden in the form of declined deferred tax liabilities at the mobile telecommunications unit.
The company’s group revenue slipped 1.5% to 2.585 trillion yen ($21.8 billion) from 2.624 trillion yen ($22 billion), with increased revenue from broadband Internet access services and its system integration business unable to make up for declined income from the fixed-line business.
Group operating profit sagged 17% to 299.23 billion yen ($2.52 billion) from 359.18 billion yen ($3.03 billion) due, the company said, to higher marketing and other operational costs in the mobile phone and system integration businesses.
NTT left unchanged its earnings outlook for the fiscal year through March. The company projects a group net profit of 460 billion yen ($3.87 billion) on revenues of 10.700 trillion yen ($90.1 billion).
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In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) reported holding a 15.5% stake in the Philippines’ dominant telecoms operator Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT).In a previous filing, dated 16 April, the Japanese carrier reported holding 14.5% of PLDT.
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For the first time in nearly two decades, the number of people subscribing to fixed line services of NTT’s East and West Corp units has dipped below the 50 million mark. NTT’s fixed subscriber base reached its peak in March 1998 but has fallen ever since and now stands at around 80% of its 1998 high. To reverse the decline, NTT is deploying around 30 million fibre-optic circuits by 2010 in a bid to win back customers with advanced communications services.
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Japanese NTT DoCoMo launches a new generation of mobile phones in Japan.
As always the new phones come from different manufacturers and share a common number. The new 704i series features 8 new rather stylish mobile phones from companies like Panasonic, Sharp, Sony Ericsson and LG.
The LG L704i Chocolate phone supports HSDPA and the D704i and SH704i feature digital TV reception.
The new 704i series includes nice phones, but the feature sets are not ground breaking.
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Japanese telecoms behemoth Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) says it plans to increase its focus on non-core businesses such as real estate and intellectual property to staunch the flow of declining profits from telecoms-related activities. In an interview with Satoshi Miura, president of NTT, said that he needed to bring the company’s telecoms businesses ‘back on track’, but crucially added that ‘only doing such things is not enough to create a growth trend. That’s why we would like to expand our operations in non-telecoms businesses.’ The paper notes that Mr Miura’s strategic plan bucks the current trend of global companies, which are tending to hive off non-core businesses – largely under pressure from aggressive activist shareholders. However, the NTT supremo believes it makes sense for the operator to fully utilise its valuable real estate, which includes telephone offices in prized locations in town centres across the country. Mr Miura plans to boost revenue from non-telecoms business from JPY700 billion (USD5.7 billion) to JPY1,000 billion in the short-term, although he declined to provide a profit forecast for non-core businesses.
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For the first time the number of fixed-line users that do not use NTT’s local circuits has exceeded the number of NTT service users, according to data from the ministry of internal affairs and communications (MIC). NTT has 4.06 users and non-NTT users totalled 4.13 million at the end of the first quarter. The combined share of NTT, NTT East and NTT West fell to 89.6 percent, down 0.8 percent from the previous quarter, marking the first time that NTT’s share fell below 90 percent. Among the mobile operators, Softbank Mobile and KDDI’s au increased their shares of subscriptions to 15.6 percent (up 0.1%) and 27.7 percent (up 0.4%), respectively. NTT DoCoMo’s share of subscribers fell to 52.2 percent, down 0.6 percent. PHS subscribers accounted for 4.5 percent, up 0.1 percent. NTT also saw its share on the DSL market fall, with NTT East and West’s share dropping 0.5 percent to 38 percent. Softbank BB’s share went up 0.5 percent to 36.8 percent. However, on the FTTH market NTT East and West saw their share go up 1.5 percent in the quarter to 69 percent while power company’s saw a rise of 4.6 percent to 10 percent and KDDI ended the quarter with a 6.6 percent share of the FTTH market.
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Sri Lanka Telecom announced the inauguration of services of its first overseas subsidiary, SLT Hong Kong, the company in a statement said.
SLT chairman Asoka Weerasinghe De Silva said the development was “a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s communication history.”
The executive said with an ambitious plan to become a global IP solution provider, SLT has already got the blueprint in global business expansion by expanding current network to USA, China and East Asia.
Hong Kong is the major gateway to connect Mainland China with rest of the world and
SLT Hong Kong is the premier point for SLT to expand its business to the booming Chinese market, the executive further said.
In terms of additional expansion, SLT said it is scheduled to establish more overseas presence particularly in the US in the fourth quarter, Singapore in the second quarter of next year, and the UK in the latter part of 2008.
Executives further said SLT Hong Kong will become a telecom facilitator in the Asia region, through its existing partnerships with PCCW, China Telecom, CNC, and NTT Com Asia, among others.
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Sri Lanka Telecom announced the inauguration of services of its first overseas subsidiary, SLT Hong Kong, the company in a statement said.
SLT chairman Asoka Weerasinghe De Silva said the development was “a significant milestone in Sri Lanka’s communication history.”
The executive said with an ambitious plan to become a global IP solution provider, SLT has already got the blueprint in global business expansion by expanding current network to USA, China and East Asia.
Hong Kong is the major gateway to connect Mainland China with rest of the world and
SLT Hong Kong is the premier point for SLT to expand its business to the booming Chinese market, the executive further said.
In terms of additional expansion, SLT said it is scheduled to establish more overseas presence particularly in the US in the fourth quarter, Singapore in the second quarter of next year, and the UK in the latter part of 2008.
Executives further said SLT Hong Kong will become a telecom facilitator in the Asia region, through its existing partnerships with PCCW, China Telecom, CNC, and NTT Com Asia, among others.
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Sri Lanka’s government yesterday gave its approval to Japan’s Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) to sell part of its stake in former fixed line monopoly Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) to Malaysian company Usaha Tegas Sdn Bhd, the parent of Maxis Communications. NTT, which owns a 35.2% stake in SLT, has been allowed to sell a 25.3% tranche, leaving it with a 9.9% holding. NTT paid USD225 million for its stake in 1997. The Sri Lankan government retains 49.5% of SLT’s equity, with the balance held by the public and employees. Usaha Tegas is owned by Malaysian tycoon T. Ananda Krishnan.
In related news, Sri Lankan Minister of Information and Media Anura Priyadarshana Yapa yesterday scotched recent rumours that the government is planning to sell its shares in SLT.
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Fujitsu has signed a contract to upgrade the Japan-US cable network, a submarine fibre-optic cable system, with a consortium of telecom carriers. The consortium includes AT&T, KDDI, NTT Communications, Qwest Communications International, Reach Global Networks, Softbank Telecom and Verizon Business. With the transpacific contract, Fujitsu’s Flashwave S650 submarine line terminal equipment will be implemented at three landing points each in Japan and the US. The new contract for the Japan-US cable network will add the following locations to the regions where the Flashwave S650 series is installed: Morro Bay, Makaha, Manchester, Mie prefecture, Chiba , Ibaraki prefecture . Fujitsu’s Flashwave S650 series will provide a capacity upgrade to the existing system and increase the original design capacity of 640 Gbps to 1.28 terabits per second.
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NTT earnings for April-June quarter up 3.4%
