“Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT DoCoMo Inc is expected to start selling iPhones as soon as autumn, helping Apple Inc extend its reach in a country where it has more than three times the market share of rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.,” Sophie Knight reports for Reuters.
“DoCoMo has long resisted offering the iPhone to its 60 million customers due to differences with Apple over branding and sales margins, but has lost market share to smaller rivals Softbank Corp and KDDI Corp, which have been selling Japan’s best-selling smartphone since 2008 and 2011, respectively,” Knight reports. “DoCoMo is expected to begin selling the iPhone as early as this autumn, people familiar with the matter told Reuters… Other sources have said sticking points between the two companies were DoCoMo’s requirement that its logo to be imprinted on all the phones it sells, while Apple insists its products are sold unaltered… Market watchers have also speculated that the U.S. tech giant demands that iPhone sales make up more than 50 percent of a carrier’s total handset sales, while DoCoMo has said it is only willing to go up to 20-30 percent.”
Knight reports, “More than a quarter of all smartphones sold in Japan are iPhones, according to Tokyo-based IT consultancy MMD… With Blackberry Ltd having decided not to offer its latest Blackberry 10 and the models that support it in Japan, pressure from corporate clients mulling a switch to the iPhone may have been another factor spurring DoCoMo to make a decision.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As long as Apple is being run correctly, a carrier’s logo will never be imprinted on an Apple product.
“docomo-to-sell-iphone-in-apple-stronghold-japan-sources-say”
What a stupid and poorly written headline……………
Scott to taking illicit drugs in opium stronghold Japan, my sources say.
Scratch the “to” above.
It’s an SEO thing
Your own logo on an iPhone, what a sick thought that is. Can you imagine someone owning a masterpiece and putting their address sticker on it?
This is just one more example of how Apple “Thinks Different” and how no one seemed to care in the past. Look at all of the logo infested items in your life – dealers put their decals on new cars, PCs routinely include multiple stickers from the vendor, Intel, MS, and others, sports stadiums are named by the highest bidder…the list goes on. Apple is one of the few vendors that keeps its products pristine.
Consumers even *pay* for the opportunity to wear logos and provide free advertisement for companies.
Anyone remember how the FUD machine initially said that iPhone was not selling well in Japan???
That’s hard to forget. Sony and Panasonic feature-phones came with the kitchen sink. eWallet, TV broadcast, Hello Kitty Straps, real keyboards for texting, you name it. There was no way the overpriced iPhone was going to sell in Japan. The iPhone was claimed to become a bigger flop in Japan than the U.S. The analysts and pundits spit hate at the iPhone’s chances in Japan. It never turned out that way despite the iPhone’s lack of Japanese-specific features. Those Japanese carriers held users in an iron grip with tiers of services for feature-phones but yet the iPhone held some top sales figures for many, many months thanks to Softbank.
Ok, so why can’t DoCoMo engrave what ever they want on the back of the iPhones and let their customers deal with it. If they want an iPhone without the DoCoMo logo advertisement on the back, they pay DoCoMo a little more for a clean iPhone without the offending logo. As long as Apple’s logo is still there, what is the difference? Some things are not worth the battle. When you have kids, you learn where and when to do battle. Let Tim Cook and the Apple board watch some 1 and 2 year olds. They will figure out the basics in life. Charge DoCoMo extra to add their engraving!
Parents and companies without firm guiding principles and values are not the leaders the the world needs today. Kudos for Apple who have both.
Carrier logo is by far the most significant strategic concession Apple would ever make, and the most disastrous one.
Today, Apple remains unique (six years on) as the ONLY handset that is only Apple’s and nobody else’s. Every single other phone out there offered through a carrier has a carrier logo on it. And all of those have some level of customisation applied to the user interface, including non-removable crapware, missing standard features (for which one must pay extra, to the carrier!!!) and different names for same models on different operators.
If Apple ever capitulates to any carrier’s demands and allows printing of a carrier logo anywhere on the body of the iPhone, this would essentially end Apple’s status in the mobile industry and their ability hold onto the status of a coveted, unique brand in the sea of anonymous devices.
This is one line in the sand that Apple should NEVER move.
It’s the same reason you won’t find an “Intel Inside” sticker on a Mac.
The Blackberry 10 isn’t in Japan? In fifteen years, I’ve never seen any Blackberry here in Japan. I don’t remember anyone talking about them either.
So they have finally come around poor NTT DoCoMo… I have heard allot about them over the years. They were always in the news. Especially before the iPhone was launched. They have to accept like other carriers that they are just a dump pipe. Nothing wrong with that. The service, loyalty for costumers lies with the handset makers these days. Not the carrier.