Rakuten Mobile received more than 1 million applications for its free unlimited 4G service in Japan, which it launched in early April.

In a statement, the operator said the number of Un-Limit applications surpassed the milestone on 30 June, just less than three months since its commercial launch during a period when stay-at-home guidelines and other measures have been in place to prevent the spread of Covid-19 (coronavirus).

The operator had been uncharacteristically quiet about subscriber numbers. It began accepting customer applications for its long-delayed launch in early-March, introducing an unlimited plan with 12 months of free service for the first 3 million customers.

In mid-May chairman and CEO Mickey Mikitani (pictured) said with retail outlets closed in Japan it faced a shortfall in daily 4G additions, setting a new target of signing up 3 million by the year-end.

The newcomer had 4,738 base stations in mid-May, with plans to reach 70 per cent population coverage by March 2021.

Yesterday, it also established an international headquarters in Singapore to spearhead the global launch of its fully virtualised, cloud-native mobile communications platform.