Japan’s Softbank rides the Apple iPhone tsunami

“Softbank Corp. Wednesday recorded 229,500 reasons for celebrating its apparent success in selling U.S.-designed mobile communication gadgets to the Japanese,” Kenneth Maxwell reports for The Wall Street Journal. “That’s the number of net new subscribers Japan’s third-biggest cellphone services company registered in June, easily outstripping the 164,000 reported by the country’s biggest provider, NTT DoCoMo Inc., with second-ranked KDDI Corp.’s 61,300 new subscriptions a very distant third.”

“Softbank didn’t disclose exactly how many of those new contracts were for Apple’s iPad, launched at the end of May, and iPhone 4, which hit Japan June 24 – it never does. But it’s a safe bet the must-have gizmos were a major factor in attracting the crowds, meaning Softbank has gained about three-quarters of a million new subscribers in the last three months,” Maxwell reports. “Softbank has been selling Apple’s iPhones since 2008 and is the exclusive service provide — so far.”

Maxwell reports, “According to Tokyo-based MM Research Institute Ltd., the iPhone sold 1.7 million units in Japan, or 72% of all smartphones sold, in the fiscal year ended March 31 – pre-iPhone 4. Its popularity has pushed the smartphone segment to double in size from a year earlier.”

Full article here.

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