Apple’s iPhone is a highly desired tech gadget, regardless of what the critics say. Call it good marketing, brainwashing, or whatever you’d like, but at the end of the day, one can hardly argue how Apple’s iPhone has made it into pop culture today. That being said, it looks like in Japan, the iPhone is pretty popular as recent statistics have revealed that the iPhone accounts for one out of three smartphone shipments in Japan.
This was revealed by Tokyo-based market research firm, MM Research Institute Ltd. They have found that the iPhone accounted for 36.6% of all Japanese mobile phone shipments for the year ending in March. This is a huge increase from the previous year which saw Apple account for 25.5% of mobile phone shipments in Japan.
The increase in shipment is largely attributed to Apple’s partnership with Japanese carrier, NTT DOCOMO, who had initially had their reservations about striking a deal with Apple, although it looks like everyone is a winner at this point. Coming in second place was Sharp who took 13% of the market, followed by Sony who managed 12.3%.
As for Samsung, it looks like while they might be doing well in general, in Japan perhaps they aren’t loved as much, and according to MM Research’s figures, they only accounted for 5.7% of Japan’s market share, putting them in sixth place. Apple is expected to introduce a new and possibly larger iPhone this year, which analysts believe will reignite iPhone sales, so it will be interesting to see if the new iPhone will see Apple’s market share in Japan increase even further.