Hideo Okinaka (right), general manager of strategic technology planning for KDDI of Japan, says his company has 829,000 subscribers for its new CDMA2000 1x service already.
KDDI launched its high-speed mobile phone service with five new multimedia phones in April. It offers speed of up to 144 megabits per second.
'We have 10,000 more subscribers a day,' he said at the 3G Congress. Mr Okinaka attributed the success to the nationwide coverage of the network and low handset prices. He expected the number of subscribers to reach seven million by March.
KDDI is the second-largest mobile network provider in Japan, with 15 per cent market share against NTT DoCoMo's 60 per cent. The company said it would upgrade its code division multiple access (CDMA) network to 1xEV-DO in 2003, allowing data speeds of up to 2.4 gigabits per second.