The iPhone accounted for 76 percent of Japanese smartphone sales during the month of October, according to Kantar World Panel data. Specific reasons for Apple’s dominance are unmentioned, but are likely attributable to two factors. The first is the launch of the iPhone 5s and 5c on September 20th, since model refreshes always cause a surge in Apple sales. The other, though, is the addition of NTT DoCoMo as a carrier.
DoCoMo is Japan’s biggest cellphone carrier, but for years saw subscribers migrate to SoftBank and KDDI, which were quicker to agree to Apple’s contract terms for iPhone sales. That trend may be about to halt or reverse. Kantar notes that during October, the iPhone represented 61 percent of DoCoMo smartphone sales.
