3G subscribers near 46 million in Japan

Here's some more good data points about the Japanese mobile market from Yaromir at the Japan's Cellphone Edge blog.

He notes that the "Japan 3G user base grew to 45.9 million in February, surpassing the number of wireless users with 2G handsets (44.8m). This milestone was achieved because of energetic efforts by three major carriers to switch their 2G subscribers to 3G services."

In terms of which network operators are leading the push to 3G, here are some more facts:

• DoCoMo outshined KDDI au in a second time in a row, adding 828 thousand subscribers to its 3G FOMA service, while KDDI au signed only 309 thousand 3G customers.
• KDDI au reported 96% or 21.1 million of its customers are now subscribed to 3G service (this includes both CDMA2000 1x and EV-DO services).
• DoCoMo has switched only 43% (22m) of its customer base to 3G.
• Vodafone added 195 thousand 3G subscribers, ending February with 2.7 million (18%) 3G users.