DoCoMo, KDDI shares rise in Japan

Japanese stocks rose, with the TOPIX index having its biggest two-day rally in 10 weeks. NTT DoCoMo Inc led gains among mobile-phone shares after the company said third-quarter spending by subscribers beat its forecasts.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average added 0.4 percent to 8,538.29 as of 2:25pm in Tokyo yesterday. The TOPIX rose 1.2 percent to 847.30, with phone stocks accounting for a fifth of its gain. KDDI Corp, the nation's second-largest phone company, also gained after Nihon Keizai newspaper said the company will top its profit target.

"Many of the telecom companies are starting to focus on coming up with competitive services, which makes them a good investment," said Hideki Kamiya, who helps manage US$2.5 billion at Resona Asset Management Co. He keeps his stake in phone stocks on par with the TOPIX index's 7.5 percent weighting.

Exporters led gains in South Korea, Singapore and Australia after a US report showed that manufacturing expanded for a third month, increasing expectations for sales in the world's largest economy. South Korea's KOSPI index added 0.4 percent, led by Hyundai Motor Co and Samsung Electronics Co. Singapore's Straits Times Index rose in its first trading day after the Lunar New Year holiday. Australia's BHP Billiton and other miners rose on optimism that demand for metals will increase.

Indexes in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Thailand fell, while those in New Zealand, Indonesia and India advanced. Markets in Taiwan, China and Malaysia are closed for public holidays.

NTT DoCoMo, Japan's biggest mobile-phone company, climbed 3.5 percent to Japanese yen 236,000. The company said yesterday its customers spent an average of Japanese yen 8,200 (US$68) a month in its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31.

That's higher than the Japanese yen 7,980 that the company predicts users will spend on average for the 12 months ending March 31. The company released the spending figures after the market closed yesterday.

KDDI, Japan's second-largest mobile-phone operator, advanced 3.7 percent to Japanese yen 363,000. The company may post pretax profit from operations of about 100 billion yen for its business year ending March 31, the Nihon Keizai reported.

That would be more than the company's most recent outlook of Y90 billion, the newspaper said. KDDI spokesman Yosuke Fukuma declined to comment on the report ahead of the company's earnings announcement at 4pm local time.

Softbank Corp, Japan's largest Internet investor, jumped 4.1 percent to Japanese yen 1,712, heading for its highest close since July 9.

The company said it attracted more than 2 million high-speed Internet subscribers, the level it says it needs to turn profitable.

The stock was the second-most active, with Japanese yen 13 billion worth of shares traded. The TOPIX gained 3.2 percent this week, the biggest two-day rally since Nov. 22.