3G phone sales are booming in Japan

According to Jeita, the Japanese IT & Electronics Industry Association, 3G phone sales are booming. More than 5m 3G phones were sold (up 58%) in March, and account now for about 90% of all mobile phone sales. It is a big move to ensure the 3G market taking off.

To be true, I have to add that main 3G operators (DoCoMo and KDDI) have switched or announced the switch from their 2G networks to 3G, leaving few room for choice, but 3G. This is translated in 2G phone sales dropping 55% to 607k units in March. In total, mobile phone sales were up 27% in March to over 6m units, a record in a saturated market where most phone sales are replacement and not acquisition of new subscribers.