KDDI doubles Q3 profit on smartphone sales

KDDI, Japan's second-largest mobile carrier after Docomo, has posted an 85 percent jump in its third-quarter net profit of 100.49 billion yen (US$1.12 billion) on stronger sales of smartphones such as the iPhone 5.

In its results (PDF) released Monday, the company said revenue for the three months ended December was higher by 7.5 percent, at 969.98 billion (US$10.6 billion).

KDDI expects its mainline business to remain strong, and has raised its revenue outlook for the fiscal year ending March to 3.63 trillion yen (US$40 billion) from 3.58 trillion yen (US$39.4 billion). The telco also upgraded its operating profit outlook by 5 billion yen (US$55.1 million) to 505 billion yen (US$5.56 billion).

However, KDDI cut its net profit outlook by 1.5 percent to 235 billion yen (US$2.59 billion), as a result of a higher-than-expected write-off of its fixed assets, such as telecom service equipment.

It has also raised its full-year forecast for its smartphone handset sales target to 8.45 million units from 8 million in its previous outlook.

For the quarter, KDDI added 707,000 mobile phone services subscribers to bring its total to 36.8 million--up 7.3 percent from a year earlier.