Thanks to a late night tweet from Serkan Toto for pointing out a Nikkei report claiming the iPhone 5 will be sold by KDDI later this year. If the report proves true, KDDI would be the second carrier to carry Apple’s coveted iPhone in Japan after Softbank, which has enjoyed an exclusive deal since 2008.
While the most recent rumors put the U.S. arrival of the iPhone 5 at October 4, the Nikkei report – quoting ‘officials ’ – says that the handset would start selling in KDDI/au shops in November early 2012.
As with AT&T’s early monopoly on Apple’s iPhone in the U.S. before it finally jumped to Verizon this year, many users in Japan will be happy to switch over to KDDI/au once there’s another carrier option. The nation’s biggest carrier, of course, is still NTT Docomo.
Softbank has been gaining on second place au thanks to strong sales of the iPhone 4 (see below). It will be interesting to see how the iPhone 5 affects the mobile wars in Japan.
From Nikkei Business (English annotations ours)
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