Japan's DoCoMo finally offers iPhones to win back customers
NTT DoCoMo has agreed to offer Apple's latest iPhones to reverse market share losses to its rivals.
A statement by the Cupertino-based company on Wednesday, the two new smartphones iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C, debuted at an event in Cupertino, California, will go on sale on September 20, 2013 for the Japanese carrier's network.
DoCoMo had not offered iPhones previously to focus on handsets from Sony Corporation and Samsung Electronics, and to protect its online store dmarket, from competition with iTunes, according to Bloomberg.
This resulted in customers moving to wireless carriers, and DoCoMo's share of mobile users fell 46 percent in August, compared to 52 percet in 2008, as rivals Softbank and KDDI won Japanese users with Apple smartphones, the newsiwre noted.
In an interview last month, Kazuto Tsubouchi, CFO of DoCoMo said the telco was reducing the number of phone models in its stores by as much as half, to focus promotions on Sony and Samsung handsets. He added DoCoMo will consider offering the iPhone if it can limit the smartphone's sales share to less than 30 percent of the company's total.
The iPhone 5S has a 64-bit chip which Apple said will make it work twice as fast as its predecessor, the iPhone 5., and will also come with Touch ID fingerprint-sensor technology located on the phone's Home button. The iPhone 5C has a plastic casing and 4-inch screen and will come in blue, green, pink, yellow and white.
Within Asia, the new iPhone 5S will be released in Japan, China, Hong Kong and Singapore on September 20, 2013.