SoftBank Corp registered a third consecutive quarter of growth in mobile revenue in its fiscal Q1 (calendar Q2), despite slowing user additions spurred by rival Rakuten Mobile’s aggressive campaign.

Mobile revenue increased 7.6 per cent year-on-year to JPY392.3 billion ($2.7 billion), its fastest since returning to growth following declines for more than two years.

The operator noted in its earning release the increase mainly reflected growth in smartphone subscribers (4 per cent), led by the Y!mobile brand, and an improvement in ARPU, which inched up marginally to JPY3,730.

Equipment sales rose 6.4 per cent to JPY139.2 billion.

Its mobile user base edged up 1.3 per cent from a year earlier to 40.3 million.

On an earnings call, CFO Kazuhiko Fujihara said it experienced some impact from Rakuten Mobile’s subscriber push on its net additions, which have been “a bit slow”, noting “we haven’t seen any major damage to our business”.

He added it started to see a recovery in net additions in June and July.

Fujihara said revenue increased across all segments, including consumer, enterprise, media and e-commerce, distribution and financial. Its consumer unit includes mobile, broadband and electricity.

The financial unit, led by PayPay, grew 20 per cent to JPY63.1 billion and turned profitable compared with a JPY1.8 billion loss in the same period a year earlier.

Net income increased 11 per cent to JPY162.5 billion, while total revenue rose 7.4 per cent to JPY1.5 trillion.