iPhone sinking in the land of the rising sun

February 28, 2009 | By Surur

We have written before about the iPhone’s sales woes in Japan, and now we receive news via Crunchgear than Apple and his carrier Softbank Mobile has resorted to desperate measures to increase languishing sales.

Targeted to sell 1 million in 2008, the device is rumoured to have sold only 500 000, or an even lower 100 000. In response to waning sales Apple has drastically reduced the price of the iPhone from the equivalent of $235 to free on a two year contract, while keeping the cost of the maximum plan at $45, making Japan one of the cheapest places in the world to get an iPhone.

Whether this will be enough to stimulate sales of the iPhone, who’s dated hardware lacks high resolution screens common in the Japanese market, and which does not support hand writing recognition or stylus use remains to be seen. The iPhone remains stolidly a US product, not supporting advanced features common in the Asian market such as 1-Seg TV or mobile payment.

The Softbank “iPhone for everyone” promotion will expire at the end of May, likely just before the release of a hopefully more competitive device in June 2009.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged apple, iphone, iphone 3g, japan, sales, softbank, softbank mobile

http://encoreppc.wordpress.com enCORe

Probably in korea too,
http://www.video.poker.onlinefree.com VideoPokerOnlineFree

Maybe they could start selling second hand japanese iphone to us!
netboy

iphone is a joke! japan and korea have phones that is 1000X more advanced than iphone! iphone is nothing but a toy!
http://www.betonmarkets.ca Justin Abraham

Well being a diamond user myself i can say that the iphone definatly does not rock. All i can say is things are changing and web OS from palm should give apple something to think about.
aleis

winmo > iphone

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