NTT DoCoMo in Tough Negotiations with Apple Over iPhone
Japan's daily newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun is reporting today that NTT DoCoMo's President and CEO, Kaoru Kato, has told them that they "are discussing with Apple the launch of iPhones via NTT DoCoMo, but find it hard to narrow our differences with Apple." If NTT DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone company by subscribers, ever launches the iPhone, "Samsung Electronics and Sony are likely to take a knock," states the report.
Asked whether NTT DoCoMo's subscribers defecting to its rivals prodded NTT DoCoMo into pondering the adoption of iPhones, CEO Kaoru Kato told The Yomiuri Shimbun, "We think we can launch iPhones if iPhones take up 20~30% of the total smartphone sales. But I'm not sure whether Apple agrees on our sales goal."
NTT DoCoMo is willing to adopt iPhones, but there seems a difference between Apple's sales goal and NTT DoCoMo's sales strategy.
Kato added, "We provide not only smartphones but also services and communications networks. Since iPhones are unique smartphones, NTT DoCoMo's entire strategy should be modified if iPhones' share of NTT DoCoMo's total smartphone sales increased."
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Docomo wants to add its software to the iPhone so that iPhone is identified as a Docomo specific iPhone and it wants to add its logo onto the iPhone body. Apple will never agree to this but I understand Docomo asking for this.
Posted by: RI Waterman | July 06, 2013 at 08:08 AM