Another good article. I’m tossing in some comments much too late to even be noticed, I’ll bet, but in case anyone’s still interested in the topic:

I posted an article along the same tack, at http://www.tekronomicon.com/page/2008/11/iphone_sales_in_japan_whats_real_story . There’s not much I can add in the absence of new sales data, but like your article, I try to question some of the conclusions the press is drawing despite a lack of data. I also add a couple of notes I haven’t seen elsewhere – such as the fact that the iPhone *does* have many of the allegedly missing “emoji” symbols. (They’re just not as easy to get at as many might like.)

A couple of comments to other commenters:

@gus2000: “An American company selling 200,000 of ANYTHING in Japan (let alone something electronic) is nothing short of breathtaking.”

Why do you think so? The market here (Japan) is awash in iPods, and many American PC companies have done great here too. Japan as some fortress closed to overseas electronics is a myth.

@GwMac: “By not including silly little animated faces smiling or whatever, it can actually be considered rude. This is partly due to the fact that Japanese text messages are very short and the kanji/hiragana/katakana (their alphabet) can be easily misunderstood without the emoticons to help explain the meaning or sentiment.”

Putting aside why users here might like adding little graphics to messages, and whether or not their use/non-use has anything to do with being “considered rude”, I can’t fathom that comment about Japanese writing being “easily misunderstood” without adding emoji symbols. There is nothing – I mean *nothing* – intrinsic to written Japanese requiring such symbols to aid meaning, at least no more than any other language. People in Japan did fine with written Japanese for centuries, without smilies etc.!

Thanks again for the interesting article, Daniel.

You basically have it one. Check out our new mini computer would attract scorn not praise. I always find it useful to remember that Jobs was the marketing, Woz the technical. It is his skill, this is why the new range of Nano only have a couple of new features BUT come in 9 colours. New features won’t be a value proposition, but being able to finally get a powder blue one, well, that’s an instant sale. Think about it in the shop, two drab Zunes, some crazy buttoned Korean model and then this Rainbow of posters and metal. You won’t even see the others. Features only matters to us, the people who write comments, a bunch of nerds. LOL.

@Snafu

Nah, even though it does sound a bit “Ministry of Truth”, Apple doesn’t make phones. I have a 3G HSPDA modem, it has a SIM card, a number, an OS with a UI, it dials, it transmits data. I would not call it a phone though. A friend has a similar device but it also lets you send and receive SMS from your desktop. I wouldn’t call that a phone either.

Just because the iPhone has a 3G/EDGE chip in it and happens to send and receive data over that network doesn’t make it a phone. There is an included app that makes phone calls, sure. Just like my friend’s modem comes with an app to send SMS.

More significantly, I was referring to Apple’s way of looking at it, modelling its business, profitability. Apple is still making computers, with a different sales channel. What makes this important is all the percent of market stories.

In an annual market of 1 billion units, mobile phone companies have tiny margins and work on churning models, like shoes, to shift volume. Apple sells 10 million it is analysed as being small fry. If Apple jumped from selling not 2.5 million Macs but 5 million Macs in the quarter there would be analysts claiming the end of Dell and HP.

Look at the profit margins from iSupply breakdowns. An iPhone vs an iMac or Macbook. Look at the support, the firmware updates. Heck look at the crashing LOL.

Apple isn’t making phones. Its making a computer with a cellular modem and an App that makes phone calls. Apple calls it an iPhone, because Jobs is the marketing guy, it sells.

By stealth Apple doubled sales of its computers in under 12 months. And people are talking about the halo effect selling more Macs. If you buy an iPhone then switch your desktop to an iMac. You now have two Macs.

To move on to the Japanese features missing.

IR and DTT, both could be added as adapters on the bottom of the iPhone. Approved or not. The limits on what software can do. Well, yeah, sure. I wonder though. A year ago we were all crying foul at no SDK. Now we are crying foul at no multi threading. A year from now we will all be crying because of something else.

BTW oddly enough there are a few mail apps, but they do other things, add genuine features, like stationery, html send. ETC.

If a US electronics company can even sell 200,000 units over the life of a device in Japan there needs to be some kind of record book entry.

The iPhone is a phone but it’s designed around the iPod. It’s a more than capable phone and surfs the internet with greater ease than any other phone on the market.

The A10 it can fulfil number of roles merely by adding different weapons. Does Grumman make the missles? No. Does Grumman make the bullets? No. Grumman doesn’t even make the cannon.

Apple doesn’t need to make the iPhone do all that is capable of being done on the Japanese phones because as was already mentioned third party developers are doing this instead. Apple doesn’t need to make a phone that caters for every market on the planet because third party developers can do that instead. Apple only needs to make a base phone and leave it to others to build it up.

On and most cell cameras are crap even at 8Mp. You look at most Japanese tourists and they will be packing serious camera gear not leaving it to piddley little cell cameras. In fact living in a very tourist friendly nation I have yet to see any Japanese tourists using cellphones in this way.

Ideally, third parties would provide the features the iPhone lacks. In practice, there are some obstacles: I don’t think Apple will allow for… well, for apps that compete with or duplicate its own apps, which means we won’t see mail app replacements or additions, input method replacements and the like; the same goes for video recording which is one of the most obvious features Apple has inexplicably left off the device, FLASH, etc., which are more “political” decisions. Not allowing for multitasking applications is another obstacle for certain functionalities, an OS-level one. And, in the end, the hardware isn’t capable of certain things, so no coding will be able to provide IR comms or DTT.

One suspects Apple won’t try to add the needed hardware featureset for a long time. If getting some of the most basic features for its Occidental clientele is like pulling teeth, I don’t know if it’ll want to cater any deeply for its Japanese market at all (see its subnotebook antics, or lack thereof mostly).

You are absolutely right! But it is being marketed by Apple as a phone, and it is doing that marketing so well, that it is compared against that category.

But why is Apple doing that? I think that if it was marketed as a computer people would not find it so appealing, and wouldn’t sell so well. Why to buy a mini computer that cannot do much, if I already have a portable that can do lots? Market it as a phone with superpowers instead and it becomes a very attractive gadget.

It is the same for the iPod touch. In what category do you place it? You cannot compare it against the other iPods or any MP3 player in the market by far. As a stand alone minicomputer has no appeal. Make it an iPod and again you have a huge market for it.

I read the article, I read the well considered comments.

So, basically what y’all are saying is that Apple has allowed Japanese developers to make money from writing Apps for the Appstore.

I can’t “see” the Japanese AppStore but from the fine selection of Apps with Kanji only descriptions that show up in the Australian AppStore I reckon any “short comings” are being covered by 3rd party. The TV one is a bit more tricky.

This is the point of the iPhone. Apple only need to provide the basic Apps. The rest are being made 3rd party. And, no, I don’t need to hear the open/closed whinge for a reply to my comment.

Also, and I find this interesting. All the journalism focuses around the iPhone and comparing it with mobile phone stats. Well, for one it isn’t a phone and two Apple isn’t a phone manufacturer.

If Nokia sold 10 million phones in a year. That would be a disaster. The company is geared to selling 100 million and providing no support or updates etc.

Apple isn’t on track to selling 10 million phones. It is on track to selling 10 million more computers not including their Mac range and is geared around those margins and mechanisms. Completely different.

Completely missed.

My current phone let’s me browse the web (all I really need is to access gmail occasionally), send emails, make phone calls (unlimited calling), listen to music, take pictures (3.2Mpx), do PIM functions , has GPS and lets me watch digital tv broadcasts, for ¥3000/month (about $30). The phone was free.

The iPhone does most of that, and the things it does, it does better. But I’d have to pay for the phone and the monthly plan is close to ¥10,000/month (~$100).

The iPhone isn’t worth the up front fee and extra $70/month for me. My other mac fan friends have come to the same conclusion. I have met one person with it, but he owns a business with over 100 employees. Not your average consumer.

I haven’t looked at numbers, but anecdotally and economically I think the iPhone is a difficult sell in Japan. Over time we can only hope softbank will reduce the cost of the unlimited data packet portion of the plan.