DoCoMo profits from Japan's mobile internet market

Japan's love affair with the mobile internet has boosted operator DoCoMo's profits by 22 per cent for the first half, to $2bn.

DoCoMo has become the largest ISP in Japan by virtue of its 14 million i-Mode, combined email and net access, users. The company expects this number to hit 20 million by the end of March, meaning the company will be the largest mobile multimedia operator in the world. It also expects to have 35 million mobile subscribers by the end of March 2001, up 10 per cent on its current 32.6 million. Group sales were up 26 per cent to $20.45bn for the half-year.