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.”
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