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What Japan Thinks on Apple’s iPhone pricing

June 28, 2008
By Ken Worsley


One of my favorite blogs, What Japan Thinks, has just published an excellent translation/writeup of a recent survey concerning Japanese consumer perceptions of Apple’s iPhone and it’s pricing. What I found most interesting is that just over 50% of respondents to the survey said that they would switch to an iPhone if the monthly cost came to 20,000 yen or less.

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Comments

8 Responses to “What Japan Thinks on Apple’s iPhone pricing”

  1. Contrarian on June 30th, 2008 6:32 am

    20,000 yen per month?! For phone service?! Incredible.

  2. Ken Worsley on June 30th, 2008 2:46 pm

    That figure would be including the web browsing fees as well.

  3. Charles on June 30th, 2008 3:14 pm

    Actually, that’s probably not too unreasonable for Japan, depending how much you talk on the phone. Softbank has an example of their plans here:

    http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/price_plan/

    As far as I can tell, they are giving a slight discount on the data plan. If you look under the Unlimited Packet Discount. The 4,200 yen number only refers to email and mobile web sites, the PC Site Direct refers to loading real web pages, and the 9,800 is about 2,000 yen more then their price for the iPhone. The biggest difference is that you’ll pay that 7000+ every month for the iPhone if you use it or not, vs only 1,029 if you don’t use it on their other plan.

    It looks like you need to add a voice plan. The white plan tends to be the best option, so that’s 980, a costs 40 yen a minute to talk, pay another 980 yen and the price is halved, 20 yen per minute. No free minutes. Yes, very expensive by US standards, but so is moving into an apartment here. If you choose to live in Japan you just have to accept it.

  4. Charles on June 30th, 2008 3:17 pm

    Whoops, actually it’s cheaper then I expected, 7,280 yen per month with the basic White plan + any voice charges. It’s almost a steal.

  5. 5Cent on July 1st, 2008 12:46 pm

    The price seems good but I’m going to wait to see if anyone gets huge boxes of bills like they did in the US. I bet the bill won’t match the supposed price on the website.

  6. Mike on July 9th, 2008 11:40 am

    People are already lined up outside Softbank in Harajuku.

  7. iDon't on July 11th, 2008 8:42 pm

    I’m with 5Cent here. There’s no way I’m going to even think about getting one until I see what other people’s bills look like.

  8. Ken Worsley on July 12th, 2008 2:35 pm

    Looks like your wish has been granted: It sold out on the 1st day.

    http://www.nni.nikkei.co.jp/AC/TNKS/Nni20080711D11JFA09.htm

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