Softbank Corp. said Friday it will offer a new pricing structure that will lead to paying more money for handsets, a day after KDDI Corp. introduced similar plans in response to government guidelines.
From Nov. 12, the company will offer monthly plans priced at ¥850, the industry's cheapest, and at ¥2,425, for which users must pay handset bills separately, Tokyo-based Softbank said in a statement Friday.
Softbank and KDDI are moving away from a practice in which mobile companies charge as little as ¥1 per handset to lure customers and recoup the costs later through artificially high monthly telephone fees. To encourage transparency in the market, the government last month urged operators to bill customers separately for handsets and subscription charges starting April 1.