CF Apple Computer

Signing an Asian partner is key for Jobs, who has set a sales goal of 10 million iPhones by the end of the year. DoCoMo, which holds about 54 per cent of the country’s cellphone market, is keeping the door open. The company confirmed that chief executive Masao Nakamura recently met with Steve Jobs.

Shuichiro Ichikoshi, senior manager of DoCoMo’s international public relations group, also said DoCoMo is considering buying handsets “from diverse manufacturers both domestically and abroad,” but declined to comment more specifically on the iPhone. Even if Japanese carriers are intrigued by the iPhone, Japanese consumers may prove elusive. Japan’s cellphone market is full of unique challenges that make it difficult for foreign companies to succeed.

What’s more, Japanese customers already have a fuller and more intriguing set of cellphone alternatives than consumers in many other countries. Japan is dominated by three carriers, namely DoCoMo, KDDI and Softbank. Compare that to the U.S., which has four major carriers and many regional players. Until 2004, reliance on a proprietary, homegrown technology called PDC effectively closed the Japanese cellphone market to outsiders. The Japanese carriers are as powerful as American operators.

They decide when a new phone comes out and what kinds of phones will be developed, notes Martin Roll, author of Asian Brand Strategy . Then there are the sophisticated Japanese consumers, who are notoriously picky about product design, usability and quality, notes Roll. To win them over, foreign brands must study the Japanese market and adopt suitable features. That’s tricky for global firms like Nokia, Motorola and Samsung, which design and manufacture their phones abroad.