Japan falls for the iPhone

IPhones spreading

Softbank, the iPhone carrier here in Japan is known for being the edgy underdog vs docomo the incumbent player. Their prices are also known to be keen.

Their cheap 5500 yen, truly unlimited plan undercuts practically anything the competition have.

Plus the fact that an iPhone 3GS 32gb adds only about $8 to the monthly bill for a mere 2years with zero up front to pay and -in my case- a month free and you have an immediate hit on your hands. I'm practically broke but it was so affordable I ditched my Sony Ericson docomo phone as soon as this deal came along and now I have an iPhone and am paying only about $15 a month more with the added benefit of all you can eat Internet. It truly is a no brainer, especially the 16gb model which is now being vietually given away.

A mobile for the Vicky Pollard generation

Shame it is such a piece of locked-in crap.

iphones

sorry but im so sick of hearing about the iphone every time in either studys or reviews its starting to bore me everyone goes on about the iphone saying its the bestg phone ever. year right there is other phones out there im not buying a iphone im buying a different phone make not paying apples prices for it end of.

indeed, indeed

... but wait a minute there.... aren't we supposed to believe that the iphone will fail and fail badly much like many at el reg predicted a couple of years ago ? I'm not sure who should i believe quite frankly.

A little bird tells me the Psion will come back to life in 2010 and steal the show. but i ain't gonna take the bird's word that easy either.

These stats are soooo sampling-biased it's a joke!

Of course the jesus Phone has a huge number of mobile web ad requests - it is far and above the most-promoted platform for mobile browsing!

It doesn't directly relate - hell, it doesn't even correlate - to the number of devices existing and/or in use.

Windows Mobile sinks into oblivion

It's interesting to watch the demise of Windows Mobile. Every analyst group has different methods of compiling data, but it all leads to the same conclusion about Windows Mobile... the end is nigh.

Look at that last graph from AdMob, and see how Windows Mobile's internet usage is already near zero, and declining rapidly. No wonder the business users and software developers have already deserted it.

On the same graph, you can see Android on the rise to become the 2nd most popular OS. I think Android will match iPhone's net usage in the next year or so. Android and iPhone are the winners of the new era of mobile computing.

These stats are utterly meaningless

I have seen these stats reported on various sites and it leads me to believe that Apple have the best PR in the world. Tech sites are lapping this shit up and only a very few have actually been critical of what the stats represent. If anybody needed evidence of just how overhyped Apple's products are this is it.

Lies, damned lies and statistics.

But the straw man beats them all.

"Apple have (worldwide) sold 34m iphones, 17m of them to the US and 17m to the rest of the world, Japan has 120 million people, 3% of 17m is 510,000, "

So, from the article, the US has 50% of the share that you correctly identify as being half of the 34m units shipped. But for some reason when Japan is quoted as 3% this has morphed from being 3% of 34m to 3% of what remains after the US has taken its share?

"There are actually 3 iPhones, the iPhone, the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS, whilst Apple likes to treat them as the same phone it's really disingenuous, particularly as most statistics separate say, for example, the N95 and N96 (and sometimes even the N95 8gb) as separate phones even though the differences are as trivial as the difference between the different iPhones out there."

Erm... having read (and re-read) the article I see no differentiation by device or even manufacturer. The only differentiator is the OS that the device uses so all iPhones get lumped together - as do all Symbian based devices. You seem to be criticising a different useless survey.

@Jim 4

Quite correct I guess. 3% of the total 34M is 1,020,000, just over 1 million iphones sold in Japan.

Japans population is 127,704,000 / 1,020,000 = 1 iphone per 125 people.

USA's population is 304,059,724 / 17,000,000 = 1 iphone per 17 people.

If the iphone holds 3% of the market, 100% of the market is 34,000,000 mobile phones in Japan which access the internet (a totally incorrect figure, market penetration on mobile phones in Japan is something like 65%, 65% of 127m is 82m) so based on 34m mobiles, 1m isn't really all that much (based n 82m it's trivial numbers).

What we are seeing is market rubbish "ohh the iphone holds 49% of the market in Japan!" when in reality, the iphone in Japan holds (based on 82m) just over 1%.

Compare that with Nokia who "only" managed a 0.3% market share in Japan before pulling out, Apple are only slightly higher than that, so by anyones standing, Apple have failed in Japan, with a minuscule market share of a minuscule market using CDMA technology, whilst the majority of Japan uses FOMA (FOMA has roughly 40 million subscribers in Japan).

Depending on where you read, you can come up with figures that the Japanese mobile market shifts 5 million units a month, any person who can consider shifting 1m units in 2-3 years a total success needs treatment for their Steve Jobs obsession.

somebody else read this wrong ?

I really read

Japan fails for the Iphone.

living in Japan and seeing lots of people abandoning the Iphone ship for some reasons.

Softbank (the carrier) sells a cheap plan where you can talk to other softbank phones for free. But not with Iphone. Iphone to Iphone is free. Non Iphone to non Iphone is free but for non Iphone to Iphone communication you have to pay.

Don't ask why.

AU is offering now a cheaper plan also with free communication between all AU sets always.

The softbank used to be free from 01:00 till 21:00

Why the hype??

I'm too getting sick and tired of every "phone" article ranting on about the CrapPhone. It's an overpriced, locked down, limited slab of junk. It just happens to be marketed very well, which isn't hard when the audience is, lets face it, less than able to think on their own.

Also, I'm getting more and more annoyed at how many articles all over the press are based on weak or very limited data sets.

J

Phones are More Than Browsers.

Even Smart phones are bought for more reasons than Browsers.

This just measures Browser use. Which probably is easier to use on an iPhone. This survey doesn't measure iPhone vs other phones or smart phones.

It's totally useless statistic.

Failures

The real FAIL? That some of you wrote pratical essays on something that isn't important! I think that commentards have reached a new low, due impart that their mobile device of choice isn't regarded by the press as number one. I'd agree with the fact that iPhone is suffering from over exposure, but it's interesting to note that the majority of post on these subjects are from fanboys of other devices (or companies perhaps?) pouring scourn and derision on a device because they don't like it, or don't agree with the stats! Fucking loosers! Oh, and those calling bias, Aple dindnt commisssion the study, so how can there be a bias on their part. Retards.

Who cares?

The Admob stats aren't worth much without understanding what they're measuring. It's particularly stupid to look at the stats for a single country like Japan without understanding mobile advertising in that market. I suspect Admob has a miniscule percentage of that market and there are very few devices that get to view Admob ads at all (Japan is a place where operator walled gardens still rule and most devices are locked down - there are tens of millions of Symbian devices in Japan for example, but you can't install native apps on them). As such it's meaningless to try to conclude anything from statistics in isolation.

Fanboi Nation

Britain? IPhone? I wouldn't say both of those words in the same sentence, much less the same paragraph, based on the comments here. But yet....