Apple's iPhone coming to Japan

The iPhone will make its official debut in Japan later this year on SoftBank's mobile network, the company announced Wednesday.

Japan's SoftBank mobile will bring the iPhone to that country later this year.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

SoftBank is the third largest carrier in Japan, behind NTT DoCoMo and KDDI. But DoCoMo and KDDI have has built networks based on the CDMA family of standards (used by Sprint and Verizon in the U.S.), while SoftBank's network is based on the GSM family of standards currently used by the iPhone. Apple is expected to unveil a next-generation iPhone next week, but few expect the company to have a CDMA-version ready at this point in the iPhone's history. (Updated 11:30 a.m. PDT: I screwed this part up, DoCoMo's network is indeed based on the GSM family of technologies.)

SoftBank made the announcement in one of the shortest press releases I've ever seen. The entire text? "SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp. today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Japan later this year." As such, we have no idea whether that means the 3G version will come directly to Japanese customers, but that would make sense given nature of the Japanese market.

Apple has now cut deals to bring the iPhone to dozens of countries worldwide, but Japan's cell phone-crazy market will be an interesting test for the company. Multimedia phones, mobile Internet browsing, and fast network connections are old hat to Japanese mobile phone buyers.

The last big whale out there for Apple is now China, which has a thriving underground iPhone market already. Talks between Apple and China Mobile, China's largest carrier, have been reported as off-and-on for several months but there's no deal in place.

[ittesi259]

This is proof a 3G iPhone will soon exist. US cell networks are pathetic compared to those in Japan.....and the Japanese would never buy a non 3G handset.

[limaxray]

I think you're confused. Japan, like the US, has a poor GSM network, but a great CDMA2000 network. (yes, we Verizon and Sprint customers have had great 3G coverage for a couple years now) The iPhone is a GSM phone, and therefore it is going to suck service wise, 3G or not, just as much in Japan as it will in the US. If Apple were smart, they would have released the iPhone on CDMA2000 to make US and Japanese customers happy with better coverage, faster data service and better battery life (yes CDMA2000 is more energy efficient then GSM) But alas, only AT&T would put up with the ways of Steve Jobs.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Will the Japanese buy it? They are a test market and have had access to phone technology that is 3-5 years ahead of what the US has available. The iPhone is old tech and obsolete compared to what they are using everyday.

It's like someone coming out with the Yugo in the US today. It's okay, but nothing compared to current tech in Japan.

Now if only we could get some of those SE Asia test market cells quicker to market in the US!

[DrtyDogg]

The japanese will eat it up. America and Japan are the two contries that Apple does well in. Mac market share in japan is huge.

[Mr. Dee]

Could you please blog about the rumor on Arstechnica and Macrumors that Mac OS X 10.6 will be coming out January 2009 with a seed to be released at WWDC 2008.