There was a discussion earlier about subsidies on handsets. Here is the inside story, as told to me by a manager at a keitai shop--DoCoMo pays 40,000 yen for every customer that signs up at that keitai shop. They charge the shop about the same rate for phones that you can find in a DoCoMo shop. Since they stand to make 40,000 yen on the contract, the shop can offerthe phones at less than the price they have actually paid, and still make a profit. I don't know how this would be characterised, as a subsidy on the handset or not, but it is definitely a subsidy.
-Nik Frengle
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Received on Thu Sep 6 20:07:57 2001