Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. continued to be haunted by the shrinking market for fixed-line telephone services and more competition in the mobile-phone sector as the firm's profit fell in 2006 for the third straight year, according to its financial statements released Friday.
The telecommunications giant booked a net profit of 476.91 billion yen its business year to March 31, down 4.4 percent from the previous year, and a pretax profit of 1.14 trillion yen, down 12.9 percent.
Operating revenues grew a marginal 0.2 percent to 10.76 trillion yen due to increased revenues from Internet protocol telephony-related services and system integration services.
But operating expenses, including the costs of telecom terminals and system integration, increased at a faster pace of 1.1 percent to 9.65 trillion yen, resulting in a 7.0 percent fall in operating profit to 1.11 trillion yen, NTT said. The business results were compiled in accordance with U.S. accounting standards.
Net profit per share fell to 34,506.55 yen from 34,836.42 yen.
NTT blamed its problems on the fixed-line and mobile phone market when it suffered revenue and profit declines in business 2004, the first time since its privatization in 1985.