iPhone 5s, 5c take lion’s share of Japan’s smartphone sales in October

Apple’s new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c are selling very well in Japan, Kantar revealed on Twitter, accounting for 76% of new smartphone sales this October. Interestingly, 61% of NTT DoCoMo smartphone sales for the period were iPhones, an impressive number considering that Japan’s largest mobile operator did not sell any iPhone models before the 2013 iPhones were launched. The iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c started selling in the region on September 25th, with three local carriers stocking the new iOS handsets, including NTT DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank. Even so, NTT DoCoMo experienced a drop in subscribers in September, blaming it on a limited stock of new iPhone devices at launch. Comparatively, KDDI and Softbank reported subscriber additions following the 2013 iPhones’ launch.
The research firm did not provide additional details about the Japanese smartphone market for October. A few days ago, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Japan is the fastest-growing market for Apple in Asia
, outpacing other local markets including China. The iPhone accounted for 37% of the Japanese smartphone market in the six-month period ending on September 30, even though NTT DoCoMo has only started offering the iPhone to its almost 62 million subscribers in late September.