Apple's iPhone 5s, 5c take 76% share of Japanese sales in October, including 61% on NTT DoCoMo
Apple's new iPhones are big in Japan, taking a 61 percent share of NTT DoCoMo smartphone sales and a 76 percent share of overall sales during the month of October.
The statistics, reported by Kantar World Panel via Twitter, indicate strong demand for the new phones both across Apple's existing carrier partners and the country's largest carrier, one that just began carrying iPhones this season after years of losing subscribers while backing alternative devices from Samsung.
NTT DoCoMo lost 3.2 million users over the past four and a half years as rivals SoftBank (Apple's original partner) and KDDI stole away its customers. Carriers on both sides credited (or blamed) Apple's iPhone for the migration of subscribers.
Intense competition between the three major carriers at the launch of the new iPhone 5s and 5c resulted in blockbuster sales, despite increasingly strident efforts by Samsung to market its phones as serviceable alternatives this summer.

Japanese customers brave the wind and rain of a typhoon while lining up to be among the first to purchase an iPhone 5s during the phone's September launch.
The piece cited a journalist in Japan as praising the nation's domestic products by local firms such as Panasonic, and attributed to him comments that called the iPhone "an outdated handset compared to Japanese cellphones" and said it would make a person look "pretty lame" to carry one around.
However, Nobi Hayashi, the journalist cited by Wired, subsequently clarified that he didn't make the comments attributed to him, and actually had explained to Chen that the desired narrative he has selected for the story in advance of writing it was mistaken.
"I think most Japanese think iPhone is the coolest item. At least I have and love iPhone," Hayashi wrote. Wired later issued a correction, after first editing Chen's article multiple times to change the attribution of various quotes. It finally admitted that Chen made up the "pretty lame" quote himself.
Wired wasn't alone in crafting a story about Apple's supposed failure in Japan. Hayashi noted that local newspaper Sankei Shimbun had tipped off reports by publishing an expectation that Softbank would sell one million iPhones during its initial launch period, even though neither Apple nor the carrier had made any prediction of sales.
Prior to Chen's article, Yukari Iwatani Kane, writing for the Wall Street Journal, cited numbers from MM Research and quoted an analyst as saying, "the iPhone is a difficult phone to use for the Japanese market because there are so many features it doesn't have."
Kane also discussed lofty sales expectations from unnamed analysts who were said to "widely believe sales are unlikely to reach a total of 500,000 units. That is half the one million units that they previously thought Apple could sell."
Kane even dismissed the iPhone's App Store, writing that it "hasn't taken hold as much in Japan, where consumers tend to be more cautious about making purchases online," but offered no factual basis for that claim. In reality, the App Store has seen tremendous success in Japan from the begining.
The Wall Street Journal report was widely syndicated despite being inaccurate and misleading, and helped to create a longstanding meme that "Japan hates the iPhone," an idea Wired helped to advance for additional months.
By early 2010, MM Research was reporting that Apple was selling 72 percent of all smartphones in Japan.

The statistics, reported by Kantar World Panel via Twitter, indicate strong demand for the new phones both across Apple's existing carrier partners and the country's largest carrier, one that just began carrying iPhones this season after years of losing subscribers while backing alternative devices from Samsung.
KWP ComTech Japan: #Apple takes 76% share of Japan Smartphone sales during October, including 61% on #NTT DoCoMo
-- KWP ComTech (@KWP_ComTech)
NTT DoCoMo lost 3.2 million users over the past four and a half years as rivals SoftBank (Apple's original partner) and KDDI stole away its customers. Carriers on both sides credited (or blamed) Apple's iPhone for the migration of subscribers.
Intense competition between the three major carriers at the launch of the new iPhone 5s and 5c resulted in blockbuster sales, despite increasingly strident efforts by Samsung to market its phones as serviceable alternatives this summer.

Japanese customers brave the wind and rain of a typhoon while lining up to be among the first to purchase an iPhone 5s during the phone's September launch.
Japan never hated the iPhone
Japan's embracing of Apple's latest products comes nearly five years after Wired published an article by Brian X Chen that sought to establish that the Japanese market "hated" the iPhone because Softbank was offering it with promotional pricing.The piece cited a journalist in Japan as praising the nation's domestic products by local firms such as Panasonic, and attributed to him comments that called the iPhone "an outdated handset compared to Japanese cellphones" and said it would make a person look "pretty lame" to carry one around.
"I think most Japanese think iPhone is the coolest item. At least I have and love iPhone," Nobi Hayashi
However, Nobi Hayashi, the journalist cited by Wired, subsequently clarified that he didn't make the comments attributed to him, and actually had explained to Chen that the desired narrative he has selected for the story in advance of writing it was mistaken.
"I think most Japanese think iPhone is the coolest item. At least I have and love iPhone," Hayashi wrote. Wired later issued a correction, after first editing Chen's article multiple times to change the attribution of various quotes. It finally admitted that Chen made up the "pretty lame" quote himself.
Wired wasn't alone in crafting a story about Apple's supposed failure in Japan. Hayashi noted that local newspaper Sankei Shimbun had tipped off reports by publishing an expectation that Softbank would sell one million iPhones during its initial launch period, even though neither Apple nor the carrier had made any prediction of sales.

Prior to Chen's article, Yukari Iwatani Kane, writing for the Wall Street Journal, cited numbers from MM Research and quoted an analyst as saying, "the iPhone is a difficult phone to use for the Japanese market because there are so many features it doesn't have."
Kane also discussed lofty sales expectations from unnamed analysts who were said to "widely believe sales are unlikely to reach a total of 500,000 units. That is half the one million units that they previously thought Apple could sell."
Kane even dismissed the iPhone's App Store, writing that it "hasn't taken hold as much in Japan, where consumers tend to be more cautious about making purchases online," but offered no factual basis for that claim. In reality, the App Store has seen tremendous success in Japan from the begining.
The Wall Street Journal report was widely syndicated despite being inaccurate and misleading, and helped to create a longstanding meme that "Japan hates the iPhone," an idea Wired helped to advance for additional months.
By early 2010, MM Research was reporting that Apple was selling 72 percent of all smartphones in Japan.
Comments
I wonder how many people stand out in a hurricane lining up for the latest Samsung phone? Not saying that it's the smartest thing to do though.
Funny how Apple dominates markets that have alot of money and education? While Samdung fleeces poor and uneducated markets by bombarding them with endless advertisements and paid shrills.
...and that is why brand S is so popular here in .US <sigh>
Why aren’t investors calling for inquiries into Android sales/shipments? Why isn’t this happening? We see these numbers. They can’t all add up. Someone has to say something.
You're so sadly mistaken. Samsung didn't pop up overnight, they were a major player in the cell phone business before Apple even thought about making one. Look at the sales numbers, their iPhone clone sold in laughable numbers, but it wasn't until they offered something different from Apple starting with the SGS 3 and an extreme marketing blitz that helped them reach the 'prominence' they have now.
Why aren’t investors calling for inquiries into Android sales/shipments? Why isn’t this happening? We see these numbers. They can’t all add up. Someone has to say something.
Actually no one has to say anything. And chances are they probably won't.
That may be true, but how much does Samsung outsell everyone else? They’re number 2 but how far back is number 3 and 4. They don't have to beat Apple they just have to beat everyone else and they're kicking the snot out of Motorola, HTC, LG, etc....
We all see the earning reports every quarter. They might lie about the shipped/sales numbers but they cannot lie about how much money they made. That's what investors seemingly care about. I say seemingly because Amazon continues to lose money and it's stock just continues to rise.
What you listed was not part of the trial, and not what Apple claimed Samsung copied. All the phones have pinch to zoom and that's going to be a hard feature to sue on simply because there's more than one patent. Other manufacturers were already developing touch screen phones when the iPhone came out so it was exactly a innovative novel idea.
You're so sadly mistaken. Samsung didn't pop up overnight, they were a major player in the cell phone business before Apple even thought about making one. Look at the sales numbers, their iPhone clone sold in laughable numbers, but it wasn't until they offered something different from Apple starting with the SGS 3 and an extreme marketing blitz that helped them reach the 'prominence' they have now.
Samsung was making Windows Mobile and Symbian phones before the iPhone appeared. It was most famous for its "BlackJack" copy of of the BlackBerry. The company didn’t ever not copy.
And no, in 2010 the year they cloned the iPhone 3GS, their profits more than doubled, and just kept increasing as they cloned the iPad and every Apple app and the packaging and accessories and retail store designs and ads. Trying to say Samsung developed some original design as the basis for its success just makes you look foolish.
Chen to find new employment at Gizmodo?
He was at Wired through 2011, then started writing for the (ahem) NY Times.
So won’t the investors be complicit in the lies when a government inquiry finds the shipped/sold numbers are an utter fabrication?
I know it's anecdotal, I asked my 15 year old niece if she sees more iPhones or Androids at her high school? She said, iPhones.
Nicely said.
Like VZW, they were probably out gaining their losses but it wasn't until this year that they actually started feeling it. It's also most likely why they gave up trying to pre install bloatware.
"Outch" (Eric Schmidt)
Kane , Chen, NYT WSJ, et al. will no doubt repeat their nefarious efforts with rumors of poor iPhone sales @ Chine Mobile.
Can't wait ! /s