Report: iPhone Commands 60% Of Japan's Smartphone Market, 7% Overall

Serkan Toto

Dr. Serkan Toto is an independent consultant and advisor focusing on Japan’s web, mobile and social gaming industries. Based in Tokyo, he works together with financial institutions and startups worldwide. Serkan has been the Japan contributor for TechCrunch.com since 2008. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. → Learn More

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

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.

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