Phone Carriers Offering Services in Areas Away From Retail Shops; Labor Shortages, Depopulation Squeezing Firms

The Yomiuri Shimbun

10:46 JST, January 18, 2025

As the number of areas without mobile phone retail shops has been increasing due to labor shortages and depopulation, major carriers have launched efforts to maintain their services in those places. The companies are trying to offer services for the elderly and others who are not familiar with online procedures by using small buses as mobile stores and operating unmanned stores where services are provided remotely.

Using convenience stores

In September, KDDI Corp. began offering a mobile store service called the “au Shop Car,” in which a small bus visits areas where the carrier does not have retail shops. The company is currently offering the service in five prefectures: Hyogo, Oita, Kumamoto, Miyazaki and Kagoshima.

The service uses Lawson’s parking lots because KDDI holds shares in the convenience store chain. KDDI announces the service schedule in advance on its official website.

There are two booths equipped with video call tablets next to each other in the bus and customers can talk with specialized staff. The bus also has smartphones in stock, and customers can upgrade their phones to newer models or ask about price plan changes and other issues at the mobile store.

“Many of the customers are users in their 60s and 70s who are in a difficult situation because there are no mobile phone shops in their neighborhoods,” said a 37-year-old official who is in charge of the service. “We get many inquiries about how to use smartphones.”

KDDI uses Lawson’s store network to enhance its online customer services. The company has already started an online customer service using a dedicated tablet installed in a Lawson in a district of Awaji, Hyogo Prefecture, that does not have a retail shop.

“We are currently increasing the number of vehicles used as mobile stores so that we can cover more areas in a phased manner,” a KDDI official said.

Unmanned shops

NTT Docomo Inc. operates unmanned shops in four locations in Hokkaido and Shimane Prefecture. The company installed special booths equipped with tablets in municipal government buildings, commercial facilities and other places, allowing customers to change their contract terms online, such as price plans. The carrier plans to operate more of these mainly in Hokkaido and the Chugoku region.

In Nishinoshima, Shimane Prefecture, Docomo’s only customer assistance counter in the island town was closed and an unmanned store was set up in April in a meeting room in the town government building. Advance reservations are required for assistance and the store is used about once every two months, according to a town government official.

As the domestic mobile phone market has stagnated, the number of mobile handset retail shops is on the decline. According to research company MCA Inc., major mobile carriers operated a total of more than 8,000 retail stores in 2020, while the number has declined to 7,142 as of September 2024. Over 40% of all municipalities in Japan, or 787 municipalities, have no store operated by any of the three major mobile carriers of NTT Docomo, KDDI and SoftBank Corp. under their main brands.

Many shops are operated not by major mobile carriers but by local agencies. Staff members are required to have customer service skills and professional knowledge, while it is said that an increasing number of stores have been forced to be closed because they failed to secure the necessary workers.

As the average smartphone replacement cycle has become longer, the sales figures of these retail stores, such as gaining revenue from service charges, have declined, making it difficult for them to stay in business.

“Regional cities have already seen a significant decline in the number of mobile handset retail shops,” said Noriaki Amano of MCA. “Given that the closure of a single shop has a considerable impact, further measures need to be taken in the future.”