iPhone tops the Japanese market

The amazing figures of Apple’s iPhone 4S’s shipment to Japan have left no doubts about it being the market leader in Japan. This was further confirmed by the research company IDC Japan in their report. The report says that for the first time Apple has gained the largest chunk of the mobile phone market in the country with 26.6 per cent of all mobile phone shipments. This figure takes into account both the smartphones and feature phones segments.

Toshiba’s cell phone business holding company Fujitsu came second for the quarter with a share of 18.3 per cent of the shipments, said the report from IDC Japan. Sharp was third at 15.7 per cent share of the market. About 10.65 million cell phones were shipped into Japan in the three months from October through December. Of these 64.7 per cent of the shipments were contributed by smartphones.

The figures have changed rapidly since 2011 beginning when Sharp owned 20.1 percent of the handset market and Apple came at number three with 14.2 per cent. The shipment of handsets grew by 5 per cent on the whole, said the research firm. In other Asian markets also Apple has been making massive inroads an example of this was seen in China where the company China Telecom has already taken about 200,000 pre-orders for iPhone 4S.