NTT DoCoMo CEO Cites 'Compelling Reasons' to Reach Long-Elusive iPhone Deal with Apple in Japan
Kazuto Tsubouchi, CEO of Japan’s biggest wireless carrier NTT DoCoMo, said Monday in an interview with Japanese business magazine Sankeibiz [Google Translate] (via Bloomberg) that there are “compelling reasons” for Apple and the wireless carrier to reach an agreement to sell the iPhone. The carrier, which has never sold Apple’s mobile device before, saw its stock price surge after the interview while shares of chief rivals Softbank and KDDI dropped.
Chief Financial Officer Kazuto Tsubouchi said there are compelling reasons for Apple and his company to reach an agreement, according to an interview published in SankeiBiz. For Apple, it doesn’t make business sense not to allow Japan’s largest wireless carrier to sell the iPhone, while DoCoMo wants to be able to sell most popular handsets, Sankei said.
No deal has been reached and the two companies may not be able to come to terms, Sankei reported.
Last week, prominent Japanese business newspaper Nikkei claimed that both the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C would launch in Japan on September 20, which is also speculated to be the date for the first wave of launches for Apple’s new iPhone models. That report claimed, however, that only KDDI and Softbank would be in that wave, with DoCoMo remaining on the sidelines.
DoCoMo has been shedding customers to its rivals over the last few years as it has yet to launch the iPhone, with the carrier reportedly remaining firm in its demands to be able to preload its own apps and services on the device. Even with the losses, however, the carrier still holds over 40% of the Japanese mobile phone market.
Earlier this month, a report stated that talks between China Mobile and Apple have been “progressing smoothly”, and that both sides were optimistic about reaching a deal. China Mobile is by far the world’s biggest carrier and, like DoCoMo, does not presently carry the iPhone. Apple appears set to unveil its next-generation iPhones on September 10.
Popular Stories
Apple will adopt the same rear chassis manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 that it is using for the upcoming standard iPhone 16, claims a new rumor coming out of China. According to the Weibo-based leaker "Fixed Focus Digital," the backplate manufacturing process for the iPhone SE 4 is "exactly the same" as the standard model in Apple's upcoming iPhone 16 lineup, which is expected to...
Key details about the overall specifications of the iPhone 17 lineup have been shared by the leaker known as "Ice Universe," clarifying several important aspects of next year's devices. Reports in recent months have converged in agreement that Apple will discontinue the "Plus" iPhone model in 2025 while introducing an all-new iPhone 17 "Slim" model as an even more high-end option sitting...
Apple typically releases its new iPhone series around mid-September, which means we are about two months out from the launch of the iPhone 16. Like the iPhone 15 series, this year's lineup is expected to stick with four models – iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max – although there are plenty of design differences and new features to take into account. To bring ...
Apple is scaling back its Hollywood spending after investing over $20 billion in original programming with limited success, Bloomberg reports. This shift comes after the streaming service, which launched in 2019, struggled to capture a significant share of the market, accounting for only 0.2% of TV viewership in the U.S., compared to Netflix's 8%. Despite heavy investment, critical acclaim,...
Last Friday, a major CrowdStrike outage impacted PCs running Microsoft Windows, causing worldwide issues affecting airlines, retailers, banks, hospitals, rail networks, and more. Computers were stuck in continuous recovery loops, rendering them unusable. The failure was caused by an update to the CrowdStrike Falcon antivirus software that auto-installed on Windows 10 PCs, but Mac and Linux...
