DoCoMo plans buyouts in India, Asia

NTT DoCoMo, which makes almost all its money from Japan, plans to increase the overseas sales to 10 per cent of total revenues within a decade, said chief financial officer Masayuki Hirata.

DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile-phone operator, may seek acquisitions in China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, Hirata said in an interview in Singapore today. Less than 1 per cent of Tokyo-based DoCoMo's last year came from overseas sales, he said.

The company joins rivals including China Mobile Communications and Singapore Telecommunications in scouring emerging phone markets in Asia for investments, in a bid to boost earnings. Competition from KDDI and Softbank in Japan's $72 billion market led to a 25 per cent decline in DoCoMo's profit in the year ended March 31.

"We will have to closely examine the synergies and how tangible they are," Hirata said at the CommunicAsia telecommunications conference. "Naturally, the countries that I've mentioned would be candidates for further negotiations," he said, without identifying companies.

DoCoMo targets international sales to rise 29 per cent to 45 billion yen ($364 million) in the 12 months ended March 31, from 35 billion yen the year before, Hirata said today. Sales outside Japan may reach 100 billion yen in "three to five years,'' he said.

Out of the company's 4.79 trillion yen revenues last year, global sales accounted for 0.7 per cent. The net income in the 12 months ended March 31 fell to 457.3 billion yen from 610.6 billion yen a year earlier.

The company owns shares of five operators overseas, including all of Guam Cellular & Paging and a 24.1 per cent stake in Hutchison Telecommunications International mobile-phone business in Hong Kong.

DoCoMo, which also owns 10 per cent of Korean mobile operator KT Freetel and 4.9 per cent of Taiwan's Far EasTone Telecommunications, may increase these shareholdings, "given the opportunity,'' Hirata said.