David Moyer <davmoy@world.com> wrote in news:4a4ed63e$0$89864$815e3792
@news.qwest.net:
> A survey of 2300 retail stores reveals that Apple has cleaned up in
the
> smartphone market in Japan.
>
>
This was posted to
http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com...-iphone-is-no-
1-in-japan/?section=money_topstories
“I just got back from Tokyo last week and can probably count on two
hands the number of iPhones I saw (aside from my own) if that. I saw
more of the usual Docomo/Softbank/KDDI clamshell or slide open offerings
then anything else.”
I live in Tokyo and can assure you that your anecdotal evidence is
rather meaningless. I mean, I walked down the train platform yesterday
when leaving work and counted 6 people with iPhones in 2 minutes. What
does this prove?
There are of course some problems with the iPhone in the Japanese
market. It’s a bit wide and difficult to hold in one hand for women.
Worse, the touch surface is virtually unusable for women with longish
fingernails. This is the fashion for a lot of women here so a the iPhone
cannot be used by a large and important portion of the market. Also, due
to the structure of the Japanese language, SMSing with one thumb on a
number style keypad is perfectly efficient. Whereas English buyers who
want to SMS and email need a full size keyboard, the full keyboard (one
of the important features of any smartphone for an English consumer) is
truly a non-issue for a Japanese buyer. The iPhone’s virtual Japanese
keypad is the same layout as the keyboard on all other regular mobile
phones.
This is to say that the iPhone is not ideal for every type of Japanese
consumer and also there is less need in Japan for ’smartphones’ because
of the keyboard issue.
But that’s not to suggest that the iPhone is flopping in Japan. And to
suggest that would be absurd. First, everybody Japanese consumer knows
what it is – and there is not likely a single other phone that can claim
that. Second, it blows other phones away in terms of its OS and its
software sophistication in general, its internet browsing functionality,
etc. Despite many people who don’t actually know claiming otherwise, the
handsets in Japan are loaded with bad software and functions that people
don’t use and are incapable of providing any kind of real web browsing
experience. Finally, as of the 3GS release, Softbank is putting a
serious marketing effort into the iPhone. It has currently devoted the
entire first floor of its showcase shop (in Harajuku) to the iPhones.
The street level floor is wall to wall iPhones. It almost looks like an
Apple store. You want a non-iPhone, you have to walk past rows of
iPhones to get to the staircase and head downstairs. By comparison, when
the iPhone first launched in Japan last summer, Softbank hardly promoted
it. One or two sample units were put up on the shelves amidst 50 other
models of various makers."
Posted By Dave, Tokyo, Japan : July 4, 2009 1:37 pm
Looks like Apple's bribing Softbank really hard if this last paragraph
is true.....
iPhone now No. 1 & 2 in Japan 
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