iPhone to Shake Up Japan's Cellphone Industry?

[MacRumors]

A Softbank official believes that the iPhone represents a turning point in Japanese mobile phones and that competing Japanese phones will have to revamp their handsets to allow for more sophisticated software to keep up.

Faced with increased competition, Japanese handset providers will have to provide more software-oriented machines like the touch-screen iPhone, said Tetsuzo Matsumoto, a senior executive vice president at Softbank Mobile.

Other Japanese mobile provides are, of course, skeptical.

Wired had previously explored the significant differences in the mobile phone market in Japan and questioned whether or not the iPhone could make a significant dent in the unique mobile market.

The iPhone, however, seems to have done quite well in Japan during its launch in July. Rival carrier KDDI Corp saw net losses in their retention rates while SoftBank saw net growth of 52,000 subscriptions which SoftBank believes was directly due to the iPhone.

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[DanielJvdBerg]

This is great news, for being:
1: iPhone growth
2: competition innovation which is always good to drive the iPhone itself to compete against that

[plumbingandtech]

Yah, well i have learned to do the opposite of what Wired says.

[kasei]

Originally Posted by plumbingandtech

Yah, well i have learned to do the opposite of what Wired says.

Based on what?

[yoyo5280]

The keitai in Japan are very powerful peices of technolegy and have more features then iPhone in some aspects. However when it comes to the software oriented side, it is true that iPhone is the leader of the pack. Mostly because ease of use and design.

Japanese phone makers may try to do A) make even more feature crammed hard to use phones or B) Put a lot of time into making feature crammed phones with better interfaces like sharp has started doing on its Softbank 9##SH line.

If it is B then that is potentially BAD for iPhone...


This is all obvious right? lol