LIVE FROM GSMA MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS 2014: NTT Docomo is to undergo a reorganisation this year in a move to focus the company on the development of its non-core services.

From 1 July 2014, the giant Japanese operator will streamline its infrastructure deployment efforts and place the emphasis on building applications services and partnerships that are centred around consumer lifestyles.

“We need to align ourselves with new players, and this might also mean making acquisitions,” said Kaoru Kato, Docomo’s president and CEO. He added that the company expected service revenues from Internet-of-Things to contribute one trillion yen ($10 billion) by March 2016.

The giant Japanese operator already has its own ‘d-market’ portal, an online shopping which has attracted seven million subscribers and generated revenues of $300 million over the past nine months.

But speaking at Tuesday morning’s keynote session, Kato stressed that the company wanted to significantly increase the number of services it offers with the aim of helping its customers with all aspects of everyday life.

To highlight the point, the CEO detailed its efforts with healthcare services, and in particular a T-shirt fitted with heart-rate sensors that could be monitored using Docomo cellular network.

“However, this monitoring raises concerns with the privacy of the data being collected,” said Kato.

“Our customers trust us, so our responsibility of how we manage this private information will become higher. Operators will have to become involved in defining how this sort data is used, while protecting the privacy of the individual.”

Kato confirmed that its LTE network would be a critical component in supporting this push into lifestyle services. “We are achieving speeds of around 150Mb/s, and by 2015 expect to launch LTE- Advanced.”