NTT DoCoMo quarterly profit doubles on cost cuts

NTT DoCoMo said Friday its profit more than doubled in the January-March quarter, as Japan's top mobile phone carrier trimmed personnel expenses and marketing costs.

NTT DoCoMo Inc. reported a net profit of 114.7 billion yen ($1.1 billion) during the last quarter, compared with 53.6 billion yen in the same quarter a year earlier.

The company said it reduced personnel expenses by returning a proxy portion of public pension assets to the government.

A newly introduced charge plan helped reduce handset procurement costs and commissions paid to sales agents, contributing to lower operating expenses, DoCoMo said in a statement.

The cost-cutting effort offset the impact of call charge cuts amid fierce competition with its rival carriers.

Revenue in the latest quarter slipped to 1.190 trillion yen ($11.44 billion) from 1.191 trillion yen.

For the past fiscal year through March 2008, the company's profit rose 7.4 percent to 491.2 billion yen ($4.72 billion) from 457.3 billion yen a year earlier. Its revenue slipped 1.6 percent to 4.712 trillion yen ($45.31 billion) from 4.788 trillion yen.

For the current fiscal year, NTT DoCoMo projects a net profit of $4.84 billion and revenue of $45.85 billion.