Deep commitment to transformation amid intensifying competition
—It has certainly seemed like a year of change, such as the introduction of a new corporate identity in the summer. To begin with, please tell us about the business conditions at NTT DOCOMO.
The mobile phone market in Japan is severely competitive continuing on from last year. While we still hold top share of the market, our share has basically been on the decline since the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) began in 2006. Our share at that time was 52%, but currently less than 40%. This drop in the number of customers has directly led to the drop in mobile communications revenues. While our revenues in what we call Growth Areas (Smart Life and Enterprise segments) have increased and offset the underlying revenue decrease, the growth has remained minimal. This is a major challenge from a business perspective.
This downward trend must be stopped. I believe we must advance initiatives that will enable us to surpass our competitors. In the short term, a “money-spending competition” will continue in terms of billing plans, terminal discounts, and investment in sales channels. As a result, huge amounts of money on the level of 400 billion yen or even 500 billion yen have been invested across the entire industry, and whether this trend is really productive is an industry-wide issue. We had tended to emphasize profits, so our promotional costs had been somewhat subdued compared with other companies, and this has been one factor in our loss of market share. We have thus decided to bring these costs up to the industry level, but a drop in profits is inevitable in the short term. However, after strengthening the customer base without damaging it, we must build a framework that drives growth upon that foundation. Additionally, in line with today’s economic trends of rising prices and soaring costs, another issue is that we must consider raising bills in line with the current circumstances to ensure that economic benefits flow to all our partners. However, we should not be just considering relying on a simple price increase. What is important is to ensure that customers be provided with real additional value.
—Certainly, for consumers, the size of that additional value is especially important. How can you meet their expectations?
The competition for customer acquisition is evolving into a full-scale competition across the entire economic zone encompassing not only billing plans and terminal prices but also loyalty programs and financial and entertainment services. However, as a result of each company launching its loyalty programs such as “points earning” service plans, they ended up offering similar services. Consequently, a price competition has returned, centering on terminal prices, which is an inefficient situation.
To change this situation, we will implement a marketing transformation through customer acquisition centered on value delivery that companies cannot easily imitate. Specifically, we offer a billing plan called “docomo MAX,” which bundles differentiated value with communication services. We are currently bundling Amazon Prime free of charge and sports-delivery services (DAZN, NBA). We plan to construct a mechanism in collaboration with partners holding strong intellectual property (IP) assets to encourage customers to make brand-specific purchases.
This approach leverages the market characteristics unique to Japan in which content and applications have been provided on the mobile phone platform. While building a solid d POINT CLUB membership base, we are linking it with communication services. By taking advantage of such linkage, we are deploying financial, entertainment, and marketing solutions businesses. In short, we are implementing various initiatives to expand NTT DOCOMO’s economic zone.
—Please tell us about the network, which has become the foundation for the drastic structural reforms that have been unfolding since your appointment as president.
Improving the quality of our communication services is top priority—this is our most important endeavor. To ensure our customers feel that the quality of NTT DOCOMO communication services is No. 1, we will do an extensive review of our network from equipment to configuration and operation methods.
As a major reform, we will expand the introduction of global equipment in a stepwise manner beginning in FY2025. We previously installed multi-vendor base stations having a mix of different vendors within the same area, but from here on, we will adopt a clustering approach that consolidates vendors in each area. We will thus change to a base-station deployment that can make the most of vendor expertise and proprietary functions. We will also undertake a large-scale increase in base stations in 2025–2026 to catch up with other companies. The quality of our communication services is steadily improving, primarily along major railway lines, such as the Yamanote Line in central Tokyo and Osaka Loop Line, and in key areas with large crowds of people. We will continue to make efforts to become No. 1.
Addressing social issues and enhancing experiential value through next-generation communication technologies
—Please tell us about NTT DOCOMO initiatives in IOWN and 6G and the outlook for the future.
The NTT Group has a variety of assets, and one of the most promising is the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN). NTT DOCOMO is working to evolve and enhance the network infrastructure through IOWN technologies in the communication network field, which lies at the core of our business.
In promoting the use of the All-Photonics Network (APN) in the NTT DOCOMO network, we are introducing APN equipment in transmission equipment shared by the NTT DOCOMO Group. For enterprise customers, we began providing high-quality, large-capacity, and low-latency APN dedicated-line services with low power consumption in March 2024 and launched “docomo business APN Plus” with added flexible bandwidth/routing control functions in October 2025.
We are also researching and developing End-to-End Orchestration (E2EO) as an application of IOWN’s Cognitive Foundation to the mobile network for achieving optimal harmony among information and communication technology (ICT) resources. As a Digital Twin Computing initiative, we are developing technologies for addressing a wide variety of social issues, using big data including people-flow data. Specific examples include traffic-congestion elimination, urban-disaster preparedness planning, regional revitalization, and improving lifestyle habits in the healthcare field.
For NTT DOCOMO, which provides mobile communication services, research and development of the sixth-generation mobile communication system (6G) is also an important theme in addition to IOWN technologies. In this regard, NTT DOCOMO has taken the lead over many global players and working on 6G standardization with an eye to commercialization around 2030.
With 6G, we will achieve high capacity, high reliability, ultra-low latency, ultra-massive connectivity, and ultra coverage extension far surpassing the features of 5G. We aim for a network that contributes to reducing environmental load, provides an optimal communication environment for every customer, creates new experiential value, achieves coexistence with artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, and provides connections anytime and anywhere. In anticipation of this worldview, visitors to the NTT Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan were able to re-experience a live performance of the popular Japanese female band Perfume. This was a rich-content experience that reproduced the space of a remote location in real time with full three-dimensional point-cloud data. It provided visitors with an opportunity to feel the actual evolution of technology. Looking to the future, the deployment of IOWN and 6G will enable the provision of novel and rich experiential value that should lead to experiences that generate feelings such as, “This is fun!” or “This is amazing!” in all sorts of situations and scenarios.
—I was really impressed by the potential of new forms of entertainment through this live performance of Perfume at Expo 2025. Expectations are certainly high for the Smart Life business, a Growth Area, including entertainment such as this. Please tell us about specific initiatives in this business and the Enterprise business as well.
We are accelerating our efforts in entertainment, finance, and marketing solutions, the main fields of the Smart Life business. In the entertainment field, NTT DOCOMO’s strength lies in the possession of assets across the entire value chain, from IP development to delivery platforms, plus our venue business that operates the National Stadium in Tokyo, the IG Arena in Nagoya, and other sites. Our plan is to drive growth by combining these assets and providing special experiences based on the understanding of fan psychology.
In the financial field, we are rolling out a wide range of services covering settlements, investing, financing, insurance, and banking. In October 2025, SBI Sumishin Net Bank, Ltd. having about 9 million bank accounts became a subsidiary of NTT DOCOMO, marking our full-scale entry into the banking business. This means that we will be able to provide NTT DOCOMO financial services such as bank accounts, settlements, and securities in an integrated manner, making it easy for customers to use all finance-related services on their smartphone.
In the Enterprise business, we aim to become an industrial and regional DX (digital transformation) platform provider with a commitment to addressing social issues. We will provide one-stop comprehensive ICT solutions based on a high-quality, high-reliability network and integration functions. In the solutions field, we are promoting the “AI-Centric ICT Platform” as a digital/AI platform that can address enterprise customer needs for introducing AI to support AI transformation in enterprises.
Being president is being the final decision maker
—What are your thoughts on the recent changes in company names in the NTT DOCOMO Group? In addition, please tell us about your determination as president to compete in a highly competitive market.
To deal with an increasingly severe competitive environment and increase our strengths, the NTT DOCOMO Group has been conducting business, aiming for growth as a triad since it was originally formed by NTT DOCOMO and two companies then known as NTT Communications and NTT COMWARE. To promote ourselves as having a strong, integrated presence in the market, we also created a Group Vision called “Create Inspiring Value.”
In 2025, to further strengthen this sense of unity, NTT Communications was renamed NTT DOCOMO BUSINESS while NTT COMWARE was renamed NTT DOCOMO SOLUTIONS. For employees having a strong sense of attachment to their companies, these name changes were perhaps difficult to accept, but if we give it some thought, they can be seen as necessary not only for our customers but for ourselves as well.
At the time that I was appointed president, we were facing many challenges, such as a severe market environment and concerns about network quality. It was under these difficult conditions that we transitioned to new management, but I viewed this situation as a time for change for us to adapt, overcome challenges, and grow.
My biggest determination as president is to bear full responsibility for the company and entire group. The function of the president is to be the final decision maker—I am obligated to make a decision whether it makes sense or not.
To be honest, some decisions are difficult to make, but recently I had an opportunity to make a decision that made me feel “This is exciting!” That was on the full-scale launch of the “docomo MAX” plan. This plan is designed to provide customers with experiential value on top of communications, which compels us to constantly go through trials and errors in the face of unexpected challenges such as operational loads and adjustments to new collaborative schemes. Nevertheless, each time I review customer feedback and data, I find that a growing number of factors are encouraging customers to choose us. This brings me a powerful sense of accomplishment about the decision.
In decision-making, I believe there are two key points. First, make decisions from the customer’s perspective. Second, think if such decisions will lead to the company’s growth. It is also important to keep in mind that they should be in line with our Group Vision of “Create Inspiring Value” and corporate brand slogan of “Bridging Worlds for Wonder and Happiness.”
—Finally, could you please leave a message for everyone.
To begin with, I would like all employees to place importance on “integrity.” We are sharing examples of integrity in the DOCOMO Group Principles as the following four qualities that I would like everyone put into practice. The first is a sense of ownership. In other words, we must take ownership for all the work done by the Group—even employees not in charge of communication services should keep network quality in mind. The second is respect, which means to listen to what customers and diverse business partners have to say and to work beyond their expectations. The third is keep taking on new challenges while imagining the joy in customers’ faces. The final quality is bridging, which means to keep social benefits in mind at all times and to take on the responsibility of sincerely and diligently completing “bridges” that need to be built. I would also like to see an “Open and Flat” organization as proposed in our organizational operating policy, so let’s create an environment in which every employee thinks objectively without bias and talks to each other in an open manner both physically and psychologically.
Let me say to engineers and researchers that technology is the starting point for changing society and driving its evolution, but it is human ability that materializes and implements technology. Customers are asking for new value while market competition is severe. Amid this situation, we need to deliver advanced and differentiated value. The shortest route toward the goal is developing novel technology and creating value on the basis of that technology. We have a strong need for people who can achieve this. I would like you to be more ambitious and highlight your strengths from that perspective.
To our customers, I would like to say that the business management policy of the NTT DOCOMO Group starts with the customer. This means that we are completely oriented to our customers. We want to hear about your dissatisfaction and needs, and whatever else you would like to tell us. Since being appointed president, I have built a mechanism that enables all employees to easily check customer feedback, and I have set up a committee that enables senior management to check the state of customer feedback and discuss any measures that need to be taken. We take customer feedback seriously and swiftly connect it to improving the customer experience.
Finally, I would like to leave a few words for our business partners. As incorporated in our Group Vision, “bridging” with our partners is indispensable to achieving any of our goals, and this includes improving network quality and enhancing “docomo MAX” and “AI-Centric ICT Platform” in the Enterprise business. From here on, let us create value together by combining each of our strengths with technology to revitalize Japan and make the world a more prosperous and happier place.
