Japanese Carrier DoCoMo in Tough Negotiations With Apple Over iPhone

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Posted July 5, 2013 at 4:20pm by iClarified

Japan's largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo has over 60 million customers yet is remains one of the few carriers not to offer the iPhone. DoCoMo has lost millions of customers over the last four and a half years primarily due to not having the iPhone.

It is paying heavily for that obstinacy - with a net 3.2 million users jumping ship to its two domestic rivals over the last 4-1/2 years - but is determined to protect the walled garden of services it has built around its own smartphones.

"We're trying to develop a lifestyle system," NTT DoCoMo CEO Kaoru Kato told Reuters in an interview this week.

DoCoMo is insisting on allowing its own services and apps preloaded on to the device -- something Apple does not allow. Customers and even some higher up executives are urging DoCoMo to cave in and sign an iPhone/Apple deal but the carrier is not showing any signs of backing down.

DoCoMo has in fact created many services for its customers to use, but those services such as photo sharing have been surpassed in popularity by other third party applications such as Instagram or Twitter.

"Unit sales are doing quite well this year but they're still losing customers to other networks," said Hiroshi Yamashina, senior telecoms analyst at BNP Paribas. "If that's the case then they really have no choice but to go for the iPhone."

For now, Google is hoping to retain customers with smartphones running Android with marketing efforts this summer focused on Samsung and Sony devices.

It does not seem like any iPhone deal is near -- but if Samsung's S4 were to pick up ground it could be Apple needing an iPhone DoCoMo deal.

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Japanese Carrier DoCoMo in Tough Negotiations With Apple Over iPhone

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Anthony - July 5, 2013 at 8:27pm

Pimp / Sam - Good show boys

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pimp - July 5, 2013 at 5:12pm

[Apple to DoCoMo] We are Apple of Cupertino. Resistance is Futile. Lower your shields and prepare to be assimilated. We are Apple. Your Business Model as it has been, is over. From this time forward, your Network will adapt to service us. Your mobile and technological distinctiveness will be added to out own. Resistance is futile.

Dan - July 5, 2013 at 4:31pm

Apple should stop being so restrictive...

Anthony - July 5, 2013 at 4:39pm

Why would they be less restrictive? The iPhone is 1 (one) phone, that is being pitted against Samsung, Sony, Motarola, HTC, Hunhai and the rest of thoes second rate phone providers (each offering multiple phone variations) and the iphone is still kicking the multitudes ass....... Why on earth would Apple give up rights to iOS like Android has done.... Apple and the iPhone is kickin butt with 1 phone and 1 operating system from 1 company..... Com'mon let's get real...

nekton - July 5, 2013 at 9:20pm

DoCoMo should stop being so pig-headed about it. One of my own family in Hokkaido was on the verge of giving up with DoCoMo and switching to an iPhone on either SoftBank or AU because she uses the Apple ecosystem. I told her the alternative was just to buy an unlocked iPhone out of Hawaii or from Amazon.co.jp and put her DoCoMo SIM in it—no problem. A lot of DoCoMo users go this route.