iPhone hits record sales market share in South Korea, grows to 51% in Japan

Apple’s iPhone is on a roll in a number of important Asian markets, according to a new report from Counterpoint Research (hat-tip to the Wall Street Journal for spotting this).

The iPhone hit a record high sales market share in South Korea, accounting for 33 percent of monthly sales in the country in November. The stronger shipments of the iPhone in South Korea seem to have coincided with a big slip for Samsung:

Tom Kang, Counterpoint’s research director in South Korea, says that Apple has managed to pass an historic milestone. “No foreign brand has gone beyond the 20 percent market share mark in the history of Korea’s smartphone industry. It has always been dominated by the global smartphone leader, Samsung. But iPhone 6 and 6 Plus have made a difference here, denting the competition’s phablet sales. Korea being the world’s highest penetrated phablet market (handsets with 5” above screens) earnestly needed a large screen iPhone for quite a time and now this thirst has been quenched.”

Kang explains that if Apple’s supplies weren’t so constrained right after the iPhone 6 launch in September, its numbers might’ve been ever stronger in South Korea – it “could have climbed to the 40 percent level,” he adds.

Japan jump

In Japan, the same report saw the iPhone rocket to 51 percent market share of sales in November. That was the highest figure all year, proving that the huge crowds queueing for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in September translated into a sales bonanza.

Rival brands like Sharp and Fujitsu faced gradual declines for most of 2014.

The 51 percent figure isn’t a record high for the iPhone in Japan. That was likely achieved immediately after Docomo started to sell iPhones, after years of anticipation. The pent-up demand saw the iPhone hit 69 percent share of sales towards the end of 2013, according to data cited by Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer.

NOTE: The data comes from Counterpoint Research’s Monthly Market Pulse report. It counts monthly sales figures. It doesn’t reflect market share of active phone users.