Looking back on 10 topics in 2021, the mobile industry swayed by price cuts

From the beginning of the year in 2021, KDDI launched "povo" and other companies announced a series of ahamo counter-service announcements.

Due to the rapid intensification of competition, ahamo was in conflict with each other, such as lowering the price before the service started, but each company started the service because the announcement was preceded without the concrete contents being fixed. Services that weren't available shortly before were revealed one after another, causing great confusion for users.

And at the end of the year, looking at the numbers released by each company, ahamo has won about 2 million contracts, while povo has about 1 million contracts, which is half of that, and LINEMO has less contracts. There are considerable advantages and disadvantages in each company's online-only plans, such as being seen.

However, even ahamo, which is said to be doing well, has been slowing down the growth of contracts recently, and it can be said that the usage has not increased despite the excitement in advance.

[2] Rakuten Mobile and KDDI launch "0 yen plan"

Rakuten Mobile, which was expected to fall into a crisis with the introduction of online-only plans for three mobile phone companies, launched a new rate plan "Rakuten UN-LIMIT VI" in April as a measure to rejuvenate.

This is a flat-rate "Rakuten UN-LIMIT V" that you can use for 3,278 yen per month, but you can change it to a staged system where the charge changes according to the amount of communication, and if the amount of communication is 1 GB or less, you can use it for 0 yen per month. It has a mechanism and has attracted a great deal of attention from the beginning of the announcement.

Rakuten Mobile has steadily expanded the number of contracts by offering this Rakuten UN-LIMIT VI and strengthening its aggressive stance as the area expands. As of the end of September 2021, we have 4.11 million contracts.

KDDI, which has become more vulnerable to the growth of Rakuten Mobile, renewed its online-only povo to "povo 2.0" in September. The basic charge is 0 yen per month, and after introducing a mechanism similar to the prepaid method of topping the required amount of communication when needed, it became a hot topic, and along with Rakuten Mobile, it is called the "0 yen plan" and gained popularity. There seems to be.

[3] Attacking sub-brands, achieving low prices even for singles

In 2021, the introduction of plans that had a big impact, such as online-only plans and 0-yen plans, was conspicuous, but in fact, the most popular one may be the sub-brand.

Of particular note was the "Denki Set Discount," which was launched by KDDI's "UQ mobile" in June.

This means that you can receive a monthly discount on mobile phone charges by subscribing to a designated power service. If you apply it to the cheapest plan, you can not only realize a monthly charge of 990 yen, but also because even a single person who was often excluded from the discount service of mobile phone companies can receive a discount only by contracting the power service. It became popular, and in September, it has evolved into a "home set discount" that also targets fixed broadband.

On the other hand, Softbank's "Ymobile" is also working to strengthen its services by adding "Data Carryover" in August, which allows the excess traffic to be carried over to the next month, and the number of contracts is growing steadily compared to LINEMO.

As a result, SoftBank has announced a policy of placing the mainstay of low-priced services on Ymobile, and from this point as well, we can see the strong performance of sub-brands.