BCN Ranking announced the statistics of the first week sales of iPhone 4S in Japan. At this new version, the nation’s 3rd carrier Softbank Mobile‘s exclusive distribution since iPhone 3G ends, the 2nd largest carrier KDDI au enters to sell iPhone.
The ranking shows the two carriers’ iPhone 4S with three variations of memory-size, 64M/32M/16M, total 6 variations occupied the top 6.
BCN Ranking collected the number of sold units from shops, which it claims to cover 40% of Japanese retails. The retail shops do not include Apple Stores and carriers stores.
The Google+ iPhone App‘s huge but only affected for some countries has been fixed after about 10 days.
As we reported on September 26, Japanese (Chinese and Korean as well) Google+ user who updated the app found that they were unable to put in their native language letters.
The new version 1.0.5.2346 has come on October 4 with changes;
Fixed bug with Chinese, Japanese and Korean
Re-enable autocomplete when composing a post
It was quite a show-stopper for East Asians. I hope they will have test item with Asian languages before shipment.
The revision 1.0.4.2326 seems to block users converting phonetics to Japanese (both Chinese-kanji and kana) letters. I guess that the new feature “Improved +mention support” seems to grab every single users key types before Japanese input method work to convert.
iTunes reviews tell the no Japanese input method is working.
Chinese reviewers are also complaining on they can not write texts on the latest version.
With good preparation with Japanese language help/guide/etc., Google+ had a good start in Japanese. This is not a good sign showing how Google not testing for East Asian countries before its shipment.
KDDI’s Android handset promotion site “Android au” has been shut down today. The site shows a very short message “Android au site has finished.” in plain HTML, then visitors are redirected to KDDI au’s top page after 5 seconds.
The special page has been promoting KDDI’s Android handset with a popular boys group Arashi, with commercial films saying “Isn’t it non-sense to have a smartphone which is (often) out of service?” and “You may enjoy Flash site with Android”, which obviously pointed Softbank/iPhone. (Softbank has quite bad reputation on its connectivity in compare to the others.)
(official videos are removed, these fan re-posting video might be dismissed soon.)
KDDI announced their new model cellphones on 26th, and keeps “no comments” on their iPhone 5.
Their pushing Android was too much and some consumers even thought that Android is KDDI’s smartphone brand (Docomo smartphone users rather think they have “smartphone”). This is a big strategic anabasis.
[Update 2011-09-27] KDDI changed the plain message with a bit better image,
and now it is redirected to their new promotion site, where they remove “Android au” logo and old movies. The new site shows the new phrase “Mirai ha Eraberu”(You can select future). Interestingly, this catch seems to match their 1 year old former catch “Mirai he Ikunara Android wo Mate”(Wait Android if you go future).
KDDI au already introduced Windows Phone 7.5 (IS12T) and if iPhone 5 is coming, they needed to disband their Android-centric promotion caravan. But could not they switch the site at the same time without making all KDDI Android users worried?
Nikkei Business Online is reporting [J], according to people familiar with the matter, the nation’s second carrier KDDI has an arrangement with Apple on selling iPhone in Japan.
In Japan, iPhone has been exclusively provided by the 3rd carrier Softbank Mobile. It is not officially disclosed but Nikkei speculates that Softbank has been selling 7.5 million units. Half of Softbank’s new subscribers are said to purchase iPhone, which push them up to the close third position despite its rather weak network.
