KDDI grew profit and revenue in the year to end-March despite a decline in mobile service revenue and handset sales, as its focus on commerce and payment services started to yield results.

Net profit increased 7.9 per cent year-on-year to JPY618 billion ($5.6 billion). Operating revenue inched up 0.8 per cent to JPY5.08 trillion, with mobile turnover down 0.7 per cent to JPY1.77 trillion.

MVNO revenue increased 82 per cent to JPY46.3 billion. Handset sales dipped 2.3 per cent to JPY942 billion.

Life Design Services, which cover commerce and payments (au Wallet) along with a number of new initiatives, posted a near 11 per cent increase in revenue to JPY579 billion, while its Business Services segment increased 6.3 per cent to JPY797 billion.

Mobile subscriptions rose by nearly 3 million to end March at 55.2 million.

Not including discounts, ARPA rose 1.2 per cent to JPY5,860.

Similar to rival NTT Docomo, KDDI said new mobile price plans make it easy for customers make selections based on their needs and will reduce fees by up to 40 per cent.

For fiscal 2020 it forecasts revenue to increase 2.4 per sent to JPY5.2 trillion and net profit to hit JP620 billion.

It announced plans to repurchase up to JPY150 billion of its own shares.