It is just a matter of time before Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo starts selling iPhones, CFO Kazuto Tsubouchi told SankeiBiz. This marks a change since 8 August, when he told Bloomberg that DoCoMo could consider changing its position vis-à-vis Apple smartphones if it can limit iPhone sales to under 30 percent of the total. The operator is paring its number of models by up to half as it focuses on Sony and Samsung phone promotions, he had told the US business news outlet.
DoCoMo has a 45 percent share of Japan’s mobile phone customers, versus 28 percent for KDDI and fewer for Softbank, and its subscriber growth has slowed to the slackest of the top three. July saw Softbank add 254,500 users, KDDI 225,200 and DoCoMo 172,500 users. None of the operators would comment to Bloomberg on the SankeiBiz report and its effect on their share price.
