DoCoMo revokes i-Mode licence to Hutch-Essar

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile-phone company, revoked a licence given to Hutchison Essar to provide its i-mode internet service, after Vodafone Group agreed to buy a controlling stake in the Indian operator.

"Vodafone has its own internet access service and it will be very difficult to start a competing service,'' Masanori Goto, a spokesman for Tokyo-based DoCoMo, said today by telephone.

The company is considering "various options'' to provide i-mode in India, including through other operators, spokeswoman Tomoko Tsuda said.

This is the first time DoCoMo has cancelled an i-mode contract, Goto said. The move may hamper President Masao Nakamura's efforts to increase overseas revenue as it loses customers to smaller domestic rivals KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp. "We can't stick to the domestic market whose growth is decelerating,'' Nakamura said on April 27.

DoCoMo started i-mode, which allows users to surf the internet, send e-mail and download games, in 1999.

The service was introduced in Germany, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Belgium and France in 2002 and is available in at least 16 countries including Japan.