Softbank to Raise Capital Spending as Smartphones Boost Traffic

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Softbank Corp., Japan’s third- largest wireless carrier, will increase its capital spending 54 percent next fiscal year to handle the higher network traffic its smartphones are forecast to generate.

Softbank will introduce in April its first smartphone based on the Android operating system of Google Inc., Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son told reporters in Tokyo yesterday.

The company will invest 400 billion yen ($4.3 billion) in the 12 months starting April 1, compared with 260 billion yen planned this fiscal year, Son said. Softbank spokesman Katsumasa Tochihara said the number of base stations will rise to 120,000 from 6,000 to cope with rising network traffic.

The company, Apple Inc.’s exclusive provider of the iPhone in Japan, is adding the Android model to expand its lineup of smartphones, devices that can surf the Web and download music, video and applications to counter similar moves by rivals.

NTT DoCoMo Inc., Japan’s largest mobile-phone operator, plans to sell its second Android handset next month and KDDI Corp., the country’s second-biggest, will introduce its first model in June.

Android, a newcomer to the smartphone operating-system market, will see its handset base jump to 68 million units by 2013, from 690,000 in 2008, researcher IDC Corp. said in January. Google software will outpace Apple’s and Microsoft’s platforms to be second only to Symbian, used by Nokia Oyj.