Japan

Yahoo Japan chooses Google for search and ads

Yahoo Japan has chosen Google, rather than Microsoft, to provide its search engine results and advertising.

In a blow to Microsoft and its Bing search technology, Yahoo Japan Chief Executive Masahiro Inoue announced the move that would put Google in the driver's seat for Japanese web searches.

Yahoo Japan currently conducts about 57% of all Web search queries compared to Google's 38%.  The combined total will put Google (GOOG) dangerously close to MORE

Apple grabs 72% of Japan's smartphone market

Defying skeptics, iPhone sales tripled in the most recent quarter

Apple (AAPL) has cracked Japan's tough smartphone market wide open, according to a report in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal. The evidence:

Apple's iPhone 3GS is No. 1 in Japan

The iPhone, which has had a tough time competing in the Japanese market, finally broke through in July with the launch of the iPhone 3GS.

According to a report in Electronista, market data from Gfk Japan shows the 32 GB iPhone in the No. 1 spot for July, ahead of Japanese-made phones from Sharp, Panasonic (PC), NEC, Casio and Sony Ericsson (a Japanese/Swedish joint venture).

The 16 GB model came in at MORE

Survey: The iPhone is No. 1 in Japan - Updated

Gauging the iPhone's popularity in Japan is not easy.

Just ask Brian X. Chen. He wrote a piece for Wired.com last April called Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone suggesting that despite the long lines that greeted the iPhone 3G last summer, the device was a big flop in Japan.

"Apple's iPhone has wowed most of the globe," he wrote. "But not Japan, where the handset is selling so poorly it's being MORE

In Japan, iPhones are now free

The price of an iPhone in Japan can't get much lower than this.

Starting Friday, Softbank Mobile, the exclusive carrier of Apple's (AAPL) smartphone in Japan, will give anyone who signs a two-year contract a free 8GB iPhone 3G. If customers prefer the 16GB model, that will cost them $118 (reduced from $350).

Writing for CrunchGear, Serkan Toto reports that SoftBank Mobile's data plan is also being discounted from $62 to $45.60 MORE

Why Apple's sales jumped in Japan

Japan continues to be "our most challenging major market," Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer told analysts last month during the company's fiscal fourth quarter earnings conference call.

That may be, but one of the numbers that jumps out of the Form 10-K that the company filed with the SEC on Wednesday is 39% -- the percentage Apple's net sales grew in Japan last year.

What makes that number remarkable is that it follows MORE

iPhone country count hits 70 with deals in Japan and Spain

In a break with its pattern of partnering with the largest provider in every international market it enters, Apple (AAPL) has cut an iPhone deal with Tokyo-based Softbank (SFT.F), Japan's No. 3 wireless provider with 18.77 million subscribers. The news came Wednesday in a Softbank press release that's even more terse than usual:

SOFTBANK MOBILE Corp. today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple® to bring the iPhone™ to Japan MORE

Report: iPhone headed for joint launch in Japan and Korea

With less than three weeks to go before Steve Jobs' June 9 keynote address, Apple may be close to a deal that would add two of Asia's hottest cellphone carriers to its growing list of international partners.

The Telecoms Korea news service reported late last week that Apple (AAPL) is planning a special joint release of the next-generation iPhone with two carriers whose names are synonymous with 3G: Japan's NTT DoCoMo MORE

Fire in the iPod

Japan has ordered an investigation of the first generation iPod nano for possible defects after one started emitting sparks while being charged. According to wire service reports, the problem surfaced in January in Kanagawa Prefecture southwest of Tokyo, and Apple (AAPL) reported it to the government in March.

An official at Japan's ministry of trade and economy said a defect is suspected in the lithium-ion battery in the iPod Nano, model MORE

Why Japan will have to wait for the iPhone

Citing "people familiar with the situation," the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs recently met with NTT DoCoMo president Masao Nakamura to talk about bringing the iPhone to Japan. (link; subscription required)

Japan's No. 1 mobile operator would seem a logical choice to carry the iPhone except for one thing: as Engadget notes, DoCoMo doesn't run a GSM/EDGE network. Japanese consumers hoping for an iPhone would MORE