“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.