The iPhone continues to be big in Japan, the world’s most advanced and competitive mobile nation. We reported in April this year, that the Apple handset commanded a 72.2% market share in the smartphone segment in 2009, capturing 4.9% of the entire Japanese cell phone market.
Now the same Tokyo-based research firm, MMRI, that conducted the survey in April is reporting [JP] that the iPhone is still going strong in this country.
According to MMRI, a total of 2.23 million smartphones (Android/Windows Mobile/Blackberry/iOS/Palm) were sold in Japan between April and September this year, and 1.34 million (or 60.1%) of those were iPhones. This translates to 7% of the entire Japanese phone market, which is dominated by Sharp (22.7%) and Fujitsu (14.9%).
Sony Ericsson, the No. 2, shipped 460,000 smartphones/Xperias (20.6%), followed by Sharp with 140,000 handsets (6.3%).
The Japanese bought more than twice as many smartphones during this time period than they did between April and September 2009 (1.06 million). What’s worth noting is that shipments of cell phones as a whole grew by just 12.3% to 19.1 million units in that time frame – the iPhone clearly changed the mobile landscape in Japan, too.