NTT DoCoMo steers clear of the red

JAPAN'S biggest wireless telephone group, NTT DoCoMo, has delighted analysts by staying in the black for the year to end-March. After forecasting earlier this year that it was heading for its biggest-ever loss, DoCoMo, an offshoot of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone, unveiled a net profit of 862m yen (£4.8m), after losing 103bn yen in the second six months.

This is a wafer-thin return for one of Japan's largest companies, and compares with a net profit in the previous year of 365bn yen (£2.1bn), but after warnings issued by the company six weeks ago, Tokyo investors had been braced from net losses of up to one trillion yen (£5.5bn).

This would have been the largest loss ever posted by Japanese company, but it was rescued from this ignominy by a cost-cutting programme that offset some of the huge losses the company has incurred from its global expansion.

The company has had to make special provisions of 812.8bn yen to cover the slump in the value of its stakes in telecommunications groups around the world. These include a 16% holding in AT&T Wireless Services, and a large stake in Dutch telecoms group KPN Mobile. DoCoMo has also invested in Hutchison 3G UK, and a Taiwanese telecoms group.