Q3 was another strong quarter for the Japanese incumbents overall. Service revenue accelerated again supported by good performances in the mobile, fixed and enterprise segments.
In this note we try to answer the key question facing Japanese telcos: what is the likely ARPU impact of new price plans? Conclusions will probably surprise.
We hosted conference calls with SoftBank KK, DOCOMO, KDDI, NTT and Rakuten. Calls happened while prices were getting cut and the tone of calls was more varied than in the past.
In a separate note today, we launch on Z Holdings with a price target of ¥940/share. Importantly we also carried out an analysis of Z Holdings entry into Fintech (including PayPay).
At their Q2 results both KDDI and NTT surprised with the size of buybacks, announcing ¥200bn and ¥250bn respectively, to take total buybacks for the industry to ¥550bn this year, roughly double expectations we think.
Following announcements from KDDI & SB that their main price changes will be to increase large data allowance on sub-brand plans from 14GB to 20GB, we calculate the net effect to be only 0.3% to MSR annually.
No major surprises from the iPhone 12 launch from a Japanese perspective, though it is likely to kick start the 5G cycle which has been slow so far in Japan.
We hosted conference calls with DOCOMO, KDDI, NTT and Rakuten. Industry is of the view that regulatory change is manageable; we agree but risk is clearly much higher than previously.
News of Shinzo Abe’s resignation for health reasons has led to resurgent fears of increased regulatory risk on the Japanese telcos, with the stocks falling 3-4% on Monday.
Softbank Corp has reported a decent set of Q1 figures. SB has changed (in Q4 last year) how it accounts for handset discounts, which impacts service revenue, but reported trends actually slightly improved from -3% to -2.7%.
In this key note we analyse Rakuten’s cost structure, which is high and rising faster than we thought. High costs explain the price strategy, but make achieving scale difficult.