Back in December 2012, Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo reported that they had experienced the biggest loss in subscribers in the month of November, and they blamed the iPhone for it. For those unaware, NTT DoCoMo does not offer the iPhone on its network unlike its competitors KDDI and Softbank. Now it seems that the carrier is hoping to make up for that loss and has announced that they would be willing to negotiate a deal with Apple to ensure that the carrier will offer up the iPhone on its network as well. Some have speculated that this change in tune might be due to a report by the Telecommunications Carriers Association who reported that for the month of December 2012, NTT DoCoMo placed third in terms of subscribers with 235,100 net subs, with KDDI coming in second with 239,200 net contracts and with Softbank taking first place with 274,700 net contracts.
One of the stipulations that Apple has set in place for carriers to offer its iPhone would be that carriers have to sell a predetermined amount of iPhones every year, and NTT DoCoMo’s president Katoru Kato seemed confident that the carrier would be able to do so as long as the iPhone accounts for 20-30% of the carrier’s overall smartphone sales. Now if you’re living in Japan and your carrier of choice is NTT DoCoMo, don’t get your hopes up just yet as it seems that these negotiations are only in its preliminary stages meaning that it might be a while before a deal can be struck.
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