Japanese telcos duel for iPhone?

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 20 December 2007 01:40

Your IT - Mobility

NTT DoCoMo and Softbank Mobile are negotiating with Apple for the right to sell the iPhone in Japan.

NTT DoCoMo officials have confirmed Steve Jobs and company president Masao Nakamura have met. The news was met by a 1.7 percent rise in its stock price.

NTT DoCoMo is the largest mobile carrier in Japan, and Apple has shown a propensity to go with big players, having partnered with AT&T in the US, T-Mobile in Germany, Orange in France and O2 in the UK.

As has been suggested with previous iPhone negotiations, the stumbling block is apparently Apple's insistence on a share of service revenues attributable to iPhone use.

One interpretation is that the discussions with Softbank are a fallback position in case no agreement is reached with NTT DoCoMo.

It seems unlikely that the iPhone - at least in its present form - will be as big a success in Japan as it was in the US. European sales have been moderate due to customers' ability to obtain highly functional phones at low prices with service contracts, and Japanese consumers have even higher expectations of handsets and services.

So far, Apple has only indicated that it will launch the iPhone in Asia during 2008. Whether that will be the current GSM model or the much anticipated 3G version remains to be seen.