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Japanese consumers showed a clear preference for iPhones in September 2025. iPhone models occupied four out of the five top spots in the smartphone model sales ranking in Japan, led by the iPhone *** with a sales share of ** percent. The Samsung Galaxy A25 Japan 5G was the only smartphone placed in the ranking that was not produced by Apple.

Smartphones in Japan

Since Japan, as one of the first countries worldwide, introduced smartphones in 1999, the share of smartphone owners has grown significantly. Today, more than **** of the population in Japan owns a smartphone. The rise of smartphones has not only made mobile internet usage much more widespread than before but also led to a larger shift of market shares from Japanese to foreign mobile phone brands. As a breakdown of the smartphone shipment volume by vendor shows, Apple is the undisputed leader in the Japanese smartphone market.

iPhones convincing Japanese consumers

When the iPhone initially hit the Japanese market in the form of the iPhone 3G in 2008, SoftBank Corp., one of Japan's major mobile carriers, secured exclusive rights and contributed to its success by implementing bold pricing and smart marketing campaigns. After overcoming skepticism among Japanese consumers who were unfamiliar with the newly introduced systems, iPhones began to dominate sales in the Japanese smartphone market. The popularity of the brand in the country was amplified when other major mobile carriers provided iPhones together with their own mobile networks. KDDI started with the iPhone 4S in 2011 and NTT Docomo with the iPhone 5S and the iPhone 5C in 2013.