One announcement that seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle this week is that Japan’s largest wireless carrier, NTT DoCoMo, had finally signed on the dotted line to begin offering the iPhone to their customers for the very first time. Why is that so important? It turns out that 66% of the customers who left NTT DoCoMo in the past did so because they went to a carrier that offered the iPhone.
TUAW:
How much of a problem? Well, research firm Kantar Japan says that a whopping two-thirds of those who have left DoCoMo for greener pastures have done so to buy an iPhone. The deal is big for DoCoMo, which formerly dominated the Japanese mobile market and has seen its market share shrink. But it’s also a big deal for Apple, which now has full carrier distribution in the island nation.
Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitmore opines that Apple could peddle an additional 10 million iPhones in 2014, and most of them could be the flagship iPhone 5s. That could add around $2 per share to Apple’s 2014 earnings. From adding ONE carrier.
