Samsung Galaxy S Outsells Apple iPhone In Japan

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Japan is a unique mobile market. They’ve had sophisticated phones with email and internet long before smartphones were popular in the West, yet, the Kanji characters and other cultural differences have made some Western-style smartphones slow to become popular there. Long story short, Japan is a unique microcosm in the mobile space. So, it’s not surprising to see it reported that the Samsung Galaxy S outsold the Apple iPhone in Q1 of this year, according to an analyst.

Neil Mawtson at Strategy Analytics wrote:

Strategy Analytics believes that the healthy demand for the Android-powered Galaxy S at NTT DoCoMo drove Samsung growth in Japan. Samsung is the main player behind surging Android smartphone sales, followed by Sharp.

Mawtson goes on to say that like Japan is starting to look like the rest of the world, smartphone wise, as you’ve seen Android start to surpass the iPhone’s numbers – something that we’ve seen worldwide.

Local Japanese manufacturers like Kyocera, Sharp and NEC have been jumping on Android like the Motorolas, Samsungs and HTCs of the world have, so I think it’s easy to predict Android getting more and more popular in Japan. Just a few days ago, I wrote about Sony Ericsson introducing a new Android phone just for Japan. As Mawston wrote in his report: “…Android has flown by iOS in just three quarters.”

In Japan, we’re also seeing features like NFC, Mobile TV and 3D displays popping up that have yet to make their way to the United States and Europe. Will these things make their way to Android smartphones in the upcoming year? Time will tell.