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Barring a major political setback, it seems likely that big changes are about to hit Japan’s mobile network operators. Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary and the right-hand man of retired prime minister Shinzo Abe, has just been elected the new chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Japan. That makes it almost certain that he will be confirmed as Japan’s new prime minister later this week.
In the run-up to this week’s vote, Suga has repeatedly called for radical changes in the mobile telecommunications environment with a view to pleasing Japanese phone users by imposing lower prices. Suga says the industry fees are too high and he wants them to go down. She also indicated that she believes that competition alone is not working, as the big three have managed to retain around 90% of the Japanese market. Those calls had already seen a drop in the stock prices of Japan’s big three operators, according to The Japan Times, with KDDI falling 1.5 percent, NTT Docomo 2.1 percent and Softbank down 1.5 percent. 5 percent.
Furthermore, while he is aware that many in Japan believe that the government should not meddle in the details of how private companies operate their businesses, ultimately, he says, the frequencies that operators use belong to the people, implying that what people give, people can take away,
He also said he believes consumer phone and data charges could be reduced by 40 percent, and he wants the cost of plans with large data packages to go even lower than that.
To focus corporate minds and spur some movement, he has said the government could consider charging operators for the use of public airwaves.
The question is, will Suga be confident enough to carry out his reforms and gain the popularity he will need to fight in the elections and consolidate his position? Goalievers say she may be planning snap elections based on her initial policies, including mobile environment reform.
This is not the first time that Suga has entered mobile phone territory. When he was “ just ” Chief Cabinet Secretary in 2018, he made nearly identical points in a speech, including the claim that there was room to cut phone bills by roughly 40 percent. As a result, according to Bloomberg at the time, managed to erase $ 9 billion from the valuations of the big three Japanese airlines. Now, as prime minister, he seems more likely to get away with it.
