22nd
iPhone dominates foreign handsets in Japan, thats all.
Recent market research has concluded that the iPhone has secured 46% of the Japanese smartphone market, ousting Windows Mobile as the market dominator. This news was reported world wide as Apple dominating the Japanese smartphone market which was subsequently re-reported to the point where it read that Apple is dominating the Japanese mobile market, which is just plain wrong.
The smartphone market in Japan consists of roughly 6 million devices of which Apple commands 46%. The mobile phone market in Japan consists of 110 million devices of which Apple commands roughly 2.7%
Japan has never really seen the need for a smartphone category for its mobile devices as all mobiles released in the past decade have been smart. There just hasn’t been a phone released in Japan in recent memory that can not browse the internet, send email or run native applications.
The smartphone concept was introduced to Japan by foreign manufacturers including Nokia, Bluberry, Microsoft and Samsung. As smartphones of the past were rather exceptionally clunky in design, performance and features compared to Japanese produced handsets, Japanese manufacturers avoided the smartphone label lest their devices be seen in the same light as the inferior overseas devices.
Therefore the smartphone market in Japan today is essentially the non-Japanese handset market and while Apple is dominating that market (and so it should considering the poor competition) they actually hold roughly 2.7% of the entire mobile market in Japan.
While 2.7% market share isn’t a lot, it is more than Nokia was able to establish before withdrawing from the Japanese market in 2008.
