Japan’s NTT DoCoMo to buy a small stake in South Korean KTF

Japan’s dominating mobile phone service provider NTT DoCoMo have not officially said it but a business daily claims that they are planning to acquire a roughly 10 percent stake in South Korea’s second-largest mobile carrier KTF as part of a business alliance. The deal would cost them around USD 500-600 million and is expected to be closed by the end of the month.

The information was released in the public by the domestic Nihon Keizai Shimbun business daily but they did not disclose their sources. NTT DoCoMo is seriously looking towards expanding their business operations in other parts of the world outside Japan and the deal would see it’s first foreign investment since 2002 after it failed in a series of attempts to tie-up with US and European telecom firms.

The paper said that the two firms would work together on cutting costs by jointly manufacturing and procuring handsets and software. The Japanese giant would be providing KTF the requisite technology for manufacturing the latest technology 3G mobile phones as they have started providing similar services in their domestic market of South Korea.

The report also claimed that DoCoMo is likely to purchase a portion of the 48.7 percent KTF stake held by KT Corp., a major telecommunications services company in South Korea.