Carrier Wars Intensify in Japan After iPhone 4S Enters The Game [CHART]

Softbank in Roppongi, Tokyo

When Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhone 4S went on sale, Japanese consumers were eager to queue up as much fans elsewhere around the world. With the iPhone now running on KDDI au (TYO:9433) as well as Softbank (TYO:9984), we were curious to see how the new iPhone would affect the carrier wars in Japan.

Well, new sales numbers from BCN Ranking in Japan (h/t Akky at Asiajin) show that – at least from retail stores (i.e. not including Apple and carrier stores) – the competition between Au and Softbank is intense.

For the week of October 10 to 16, Softbank holds just a slight edge with 51.8 percent of iPhone 4S sales versus 48.4 for au. You can see the breakdown in the chart below. Of course, Softbank is still selling the iPhone 4, and if that’s included, then Softbank still holds an edge.

BCN: Oct 10-16 retail sales

Meanwhile, the country’s leading carrier NTT Docomo just rolled out its own line of smartphones last week, as we reported here. The new lineup included four new LTE phones, including the Samsung Galaxy SII. The company is also scheduled to roll out the new Android 4.0 Samsung Galaxy Nexus in November, which should be its strongest smartphone competitor for the iPhone 4S running on Softbank and au.

As we mentioned last week, Docomo’s CEO at least sounds confident that his new lineup of phones can “fully compete” with the iPhone. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the new year. The current overall breakdown of top handset sales according to BCN is below.