Japan’s second-largest mobile carrier by subscribers fell in Tokyo trading after a nationwide disruption of its services over the weekend.
As many as 39 million mobile lines were affected, preventing users from making calls or using data services, until the network was almost fully restored yesterday afternoon.
KDDI Corp, in an unusually large swing for a typically stable stock, dropped as much as 3.9 percent, its biggest intraday fall since March 30. Shares pared their losses by the close, falling 1.7 percent, but still trailed the TOPIX’s 1.3 percent gain.
Photo: AP
The network disruption began early on Saturday and affected KDDI users nationwide as well as other platforms using the carrier’s network, such as weather services, parcel deliveries and ATMs.
Rakuten Mobile, operated by e-commerce company Rakuten Group Inc, said its users were also affected.
Voice and data transmission have been almost fully restored as of 4pm, KDDI said.
“We deeply regret what happened, as a telecommunications company that should provide a stable service and support social infrastructure,” KDDI president Makoto Takahashi said at a news briefing on Sunday, local broadcaster NHK reported. “We’re doing our best on recovery efforts.”
This is not the first time Japan has suffered significant mobile network problems. NTT Docomo Inc reported an outage in October last year that disrupted phone and data communications services nationwide. The government told NTT Docomo in November to improve operations following the incident.
The incident is “very regrettable,” Japanese Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Yasushi Kaneko told a news conference on Sunday.
KDDI should take drastic measures to prevent any recurrence, he said.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is considering issuing administrative guidance, the Asahi Shimbun reported, without attribution.
“This will have a negative impact on share prices in the short term,” Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley analyst Hideaki Tanaka wrote in a report after the KDDI disruption. “But this is a risk that all major carriers have. I don’t think this will cause major changes to the number of subscribers.”
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
Intel Corp is joining Elon Musk’s long-shot effort to develop semiconductors for Tesla Inc, Space Exploration Technologies Corp and xAI, marking a surprising twist in the chipmaker’s comeback bid. Intel would help the Terafab project “refactor” the technology in a chip factory, the company said on Tuesday in a post on X, Musk’s social media platform. That is a stage in the development process that typically helps make chips more powerful or reliable. The chipmaker’s shares jumped 4.2 percent to US$52.91 in New York trading on Tuesday. The Terafab project is a grand plan by Musk to eventually manufacture his own chips for
RSS