Softbank Mobile Corp., Japan's third-largest mobile carrier, today said it had joined the ranks of providers set to sell Apple Inc.'s iPhone this year.
Like nearly all recent revelations by carriers that have struck deals with Apple, the announcement was terse. "Softbank Mobile Corp. today announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Japan later this year," the company said in an online statement.
Softbank, which claims a customer base of more than 18 million, is third in the lucrative Japanese cell phone service market; NTT DoCoMo Inc. leads with more than half of the country's mobile subscribers, and KDDI Corp. takes second place.
But while Softbank is the first Japanese carrier to lay claim to the iPhone, others -- notably DoCoMo -- have also reportedly been in negotiations with Apple. Last December, for example, news reports claimed that DoCoMo and Softbank had both been talking with Apple, while two weeks ago, other accounts out of Korea pegged DoCoMo as having the inside track.
Softbank did not say whether it has an exclusive agreement with Apple in Japan, nor did it disclose financial terms.
The Japanese carrier's network is predominantly 3G-based -- its third-generation subscribers outnumber those using a slower data network by more then 4 to 1 -- and the Japanese market is an especially important one to Apple. The computer and consumer electronics company racked up $424 million in sales there during the most recently-reported quarter, and Japan was the only Apple market to show a revenue increase over the previous quarter.
In the past four weeks, several countries have been claimed by multiple carriers. The first to break with Apple's business model -- which since June 2007 has required mobile providers to share subscriber revenues with Apple -- were Vodafone Group PLC and Telecom Italia SpA, which both said they would sell the iPhone in Italy in 2008.
Since then, nonexclusive deals have been made with carriers serving Austria, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, India and Portugal.
Also on Wednesday, Telefónica SA said it would sell the iPhone in Spain. In a statement just three words longer than Softbank's, Spain's largest mobile carrier said, "Telefónica has signed an agreement with Apple to sell iPhone in Spain. The iPhone will be launched later this year."
The Softbank and Telefónica announcements come just five days before the June 9 opening of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where CEO Steve Jobs will take the stage to deliver the keynote address. Jobs is expected to launch a new 3G-based iPhone during the keynote.
Also set to play a prominent part at WWDC will be iPhone 2.0, the firmware upgrade unveiled in March that will let iPhone users add third-party applications to their devices and allow enterprises to synchronize corporate iPhones with Microsoft Exchange e-mail and scheduling servers.
"That will be the most interesting thing next week," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at JupiterResearch and a Computerworld columnist, today. "The new iPhone architecture will transform the iPhone into an interesting device, whether you make calls on it or don't."
Apple's iPhone will be available in more than 50 countries by the end of the year, according to Computerworld's count of the deals announced by both Apple and mobile carriers. Currently, the iPhone is available only in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany and Austria.