Online brokerages continued to enjoy steep earnings growth thanks to the recent market rally, with Matsui Securities Co. reporting Thursday its net profit during the October-December period jumped more than 3 1/2-fold from a year earlier.

The firm's net profit came to 2.14 billion yen, up from 599 million yen a year ago, while revenue was 6.86 billion yen, compared with 3.35 billion yen the year before.

The company attributed its strong quarterly showing to a soaring brokerage volume stimulated by the market rally.

After hitting a postbubble low of 7,607.88 on April 28, the Nikkei 225 average hit its high for the year at 11,161.71 on Oct. 20.

Megumu Motohisa, chief operating officer of Matsui Securities, said the company continues to see brisk business in the current quarter, with brokerage volume and fee revenues moving a little higher than the average of the previous quarter.

Likewise, kabu.com said its net profit for the fiscal third quarter shot up more than 16-fold to 698 million yen on revenue of 1.69 billion yen, up from 757 million yen a year ago.

Monex Inc. reported strong earnings for the first three quarters of fiscal 2003.

During the October-December period, it logged a net profit of 679.27 million yen.

The firm chalked up a net loss of 509.77 million yen a year earlier.

Oki Matsumoto, chief executive of Monex, an affiliate of Sony Corp., said prospects for the stock market will continue to be favorable.

With their relatively low fees and the ease of placing orders, online brokerages are rapidly attracting individual investors who have come to play a bigger role in the stock market.

And competition among these brokerages is only likely to intensify.

Matsui said it will introduce a new fee discount service in April to lure so-called day traders, who make money by repeating numerous trading in a single day, from online rivals.