TOKYO -- In Japan, the craze for the Internet and mobile phones go hand in hand.
Figures released by the country's three cell phone operators Monday showed the number of Japanese mobile phone users with Internet access will top 10 million by the end of May, making the mobile phone Japan's most popular way of accessing the Web.
About 18 percent of Japan's mobile phone users will be equipped with Web-compatible phones by the end of the month, the data showed.
NTT DoCoMo Inc., a mobile phone unit of telecoms giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp., said it had 6.92 million subscribers to its Internet service known as i-mode as of Sunday, and the number of subscribers was increasing by 20,000 a day.
DoCoMo's i-mode, where users can exchange email, do online banking, and navigate more than 7,000 Internet sites set up for the service, has overtaken traditional Japanese Internet service providers (ISPs) such as Fujitsu Ltd. to become Japan's biggest Internet access platform.
The popularity of the service forced DoCoMo to temporarily limit sales of i-mode mobile phones last month because of capacity problems created by a surge in subscribers.
DoCoMo's competitors are also enjoying strong sales of Web Nippon Ido Tsushin Corp., the cell phone arm of Japan's DDI Corp, said it had about two million subscribers to its Web-access services, EZ Web and EZ Access, as of last Wednesday.
J-Phone, the mobile phone unit of Japan Telecom Co. Ltd. saw subscribers to its J-Sky Internet service almost double in April from the previous month to a total 1.04 million.
If DoCoMo i-mode users continue growing at the current rate, the total number of subscribers using mobile phones to access the Web will exceed 10 million by the end of May.
Mobile phones are the preferred mode of communication in Japan, with 56.8 million subscribers as of the end of March, compared to the 55.4 million subscribers of phone services on fixed analog lines.
