From Canada to Australia to Spain to China...and now to Japan; Apple's whirlwind iPhone tour continues this week with new information that Jobs & Co. are actively shopping the Love Slab around to various carriers like DoCoMo and Softbank in the land of the rising sun.
As we all know, Apple's using the Highlander approach to carrier deals (There can be only one!). So who's it going to be in Japan? Right now, most people are betting on DoCoMo, based on the simple fact that Apple has (to date) preferred signing agreements with the largest mobile operators in a given country. Indeed, while Softbank is also widely believed to be interested in partnering with Apple, DoCoMo remains Japan's biggest provider. By most estimates, the carrier has more than 50 million customers, or about half of Japan's cellular market.
As far as negotiations are concerned, Apple is expected to face many of the same problems it's reportedly having with China's largest carrier, China Mobile. Once again, the sticking point seems to be the company's revenue share demands. The Journal believes that the folks in Cupertino are probably asking for the same percentage of revenue they currently receive from other carrier partners, or around 10 percent. Still, Apple may find it has quite a bit more elbow room at the negotiating table in Japan than it does in China given the fact that the latter country has some 200 million more subscribers and is mostly dominated by one carrier.
Here's my question: With all these concurrent negotiations supposedly happening with a variety of international mobile carriers, what exactly is the hold up? We know the revenue share thing is certainly one possibility. But then again it's also no secret Apple has a vested interest in releasing the iPhone in as many places as possible to meet Jobs' goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. In the end, I wonder what's ultimately more important to the company: convincing/bullying these carriers into a hefty (and in some cases, unprecedented) revenue share deals, or hitting that 10 million mark? At some point, Apple execs may have to pick one or the other. Then again, if holiday sales go well here in the U.S., maybe not.
[Via WSJ]
Photo: Flickr/tcnineteen
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