TOKYO, JAPAN, October 1, 2003 --- NTT DoCoMo, Inc. and its eight regional subsidiaries announced that the number of subscribers to the 3G FOMA® service nationwide passed the 1 million mark as of yesterday, two years after launch of the service.
DoCoMo has striven to improve handset quality, lengthen battery life and expand the area of network coverage. It has trimmed handset weight to a sleek 109g* and beefed up battery standby time to approx. 310 hours**.
To cost-effectively expand coverage area, the company has developed micro-base stations for its FOMA service, and now provides network availability to 96% of the nation's population. Overall network accessibility will be further expanded to 99% of the population by the end of March 2004. To facilitate highly advanced network services inside buildings and underground malls as well, DoCoMo plans to have a total of 1,600 indoor micro-base stations in place by the end of March 2004.
This winter and next spring, DoCoMo intends to unveil even more advanced FOMA handsets, incorporating high-volume i-appli™ enabling users to enjoy especially rich mobile content. With ever greater user-friendliness, the company also expects an increasing number of subscribers to make full use of their videophone and videomail capabilities.
*109g is the weight for the N2102V model.
** 310 hours is the stand by time (static) for the F2102V model.
Please see the attachment for milestones in subscriber growth to 1 million.
Attachment:
| Date | No. of Subscribers |
| October 1, 2001 | FOMA service is launched. |
| April 15, 2002 | 100,000 |
| March 5, 2003 | 200,000 |
| March 28, 2003 | 300,000 |
| April 25, 2003 | 400,000 |
| June 14, 2003 | 500,000 |
| July 21, 2003 | 600,000 |
| August 12, 2003 | 700,000 |
| September 4, 2003 | 800,000 |
| September 20, 2003 | 900,000 |
| September 30, 2003 | 1 million |
About NTT DoCoMo
NTT DoCoMo is the world's leading mobile communications company with more than 47 million customers. The company provides a wide variety of leading-edge mobile multimedia services. These include i-mode® the world's most popular mobile internet service, which provides e-mail and internet access to over 39 million subscribers, and FOMA, launched in 2001 as the world's first 3G mobile service based on W-CDMA. In addition to wholly owned subsidiaries in Europe and North and South America, the company is expanding its global reach through strategic alliances with mobile and multimedia service providers in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North and South America. NTT DoCoMo is listed on the Tokyo (9437), London (NDCM), and New York (DCM) stock exchanges. For more information, visit www.docomo.ne.jp/english
i-mode and FOMA are trademarks or registered trademarks of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan and other countries.
i-appli is a trademark of NTT DoCoMo, Inc. in Japan.
NTT DoCoMo's FOMA service is only available to subscribers in Japan.
