Samsung Galaxy S launch in Japan doesn't beat iPhone 4
updated 11:00 am EDT, Thu November 4, 2010
Galaxy S in Japan gets mixed results versus iPhone
Samsung's launch of the Galaxy S in Japan wasn't enough to upset Apple's total iPhone sales, Japan's BCN said today. A launch at NTT DoCoMo on October 28 was enough to make the Android phone the top-selling individual cellphone in the country, above the 32GB iPhone 4, but wasn't enough to oust the iPhone 4 when the 16GB model was factored in. Both Apple devices were second and third place.
Achieving stronger sales than any one current iPhone model is an achievement for Samsung, which had to overcome both a long-established lead as a traditional aversion to foreign phones in Japan. Most Japanese buy local devices and usually only go elsewhere with smartphones. It may not maintain the lead as it was competing against a device that had already been in stores for four months.
The BCN data nonetheless marked a broken streak for Apple. The two iPhone capacities were first and second place in the Japanese cellphone market for 18 weeks, outpacing both traditional Japanese phones and domestically made smartphones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. It came despite the iPhone's only carrier, SoftBank, still being third-place among Japanese carriers, trailing KDDI and NTT DoCoMo.
Samsung expects the Galaxy S to sell relatively well worldwide with 10 million in 2010, but the update on sales numbers may not guarantee a significant impact in Japan. [via Chosunilbo]
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2008
And I can so well remember the pundits saying
that the iPhone will completely fail in Japan. I personally had my doubts about the iPhone doing as well in Japan as other countries because of all the specialized features that Japanese cellphones had. FeliCa, 1-Seg and texting is so important to those Japanese I just figured they couldn't do without the specialty chips and physical keys. Apple with the iPhone did what no other cellphone maker could do in a country that seems rather set in its ways. Apple really does pull off some amazing stuff.