Will "iPhone" open the way for Rakuten to move?

The "iPhone" of mobile phone companies

　At present, Apple iPhone accounts for nearly half of the domestic share. The impact of high-price routes over the past few years has been gloomy for some time, but the recent sales, which account for about 40% of all sales, show that one of the most important products for mobile phone companies.

　However, as readers know, iPhone is not a commodity that any operator can handle. With the exception of Apple, only mobile phone operators that have formal contracts with the company can sell. In China, Softbank Corp. began to sell "iPhone3G" exclusively in July 2008. at first, au and NTT DoCoMo could not handle iPhone. With regard to au, at that time, the CDMA method was adopted, so there are also aspects that there is no way. NTT DoCoMo Softbank Corp. 's sale for about 5 years, iPhone can not deal with, the company's MNP re-export increase has had a great impact.

　The background in which Softbank Corp. was able to handle iPhone exclusively is that there is also said to be a personal connection between Apple's late founder Steve Jobs (Steve Jobs) and son, chairman and president of Softbank Corp. Group. As a business, Softbank Corp. accepted various terms of sale offered by Apple and realized this. Although he did not disclose details of the conditions, he said that it was not only sales volume, but also quite detailed conditions, including sales methods, price reduction restrictions, preferential measures in terms of charges, and differentiation from other models.

　After that, Belezon in the United States began to sell CDMA in February 2011, au began to sell "iPhone4S" based on it in October of the same year, and NTT DoCoMo finally began to operate "iPhone5s" and "iPhone5c" in September 2013. Since then, the three major companies have started operating iPhone and iPad, and every September, on the launch day of the latest iPhone model, the company's flagship stores and so on hold the usual sales launch activities.

　As for the three major companies, at first, there was no domestic sale of iPhone without SIM, nor did it provide SIM card unlocking, so it could not be used in essence. Therefore, some individuals also import foreign sales of the SIM-free version of iPhone, plug into the major domestic mobile phone companies SIM cards, the use of the action.

　However, in the official IIJ blog "Tokurogu", which is also familiar to this magazine, in September 2013, it was made clear that "data communication can be used by letting the iPhone5s/5c inserted into the IIJmio SIM card read the APN structure configuration file." Gradually, in China, the method of using iPhone and iPad on SIM cards other than three major companies also began to attract attention.

　Things have changed, and Apple began selling SIM-free versions of "iPhone5s" and "iPhone5c" in November 2013. However, the SIM card needs to sign a separate contract with each mobile phone company, and APN must be prepared to form a profile when MVNO companies use it. In other words, the SIM-free version of iPhone sold in China is the official product sold by Apple, but the indispensable communication services in the action are only supported by three main services, and the use in each MVNO company is only handled by each company alone.

　In addition, it started selling "iPhone 5s" in Y Mobile in March 2016 and UQ Mobile in September of the same year. At that time, the latest models were the "iPhone6s" series and the "iPhone7" series, so the "iPhone5s" was a lost model, but even so, the two brands began to deal with iPhone, which greatly contributed to the increase in the contract. However, the iPhone treatment of the two brands is different from that of the three major companies, and like the MVNO companies, it is necessary to apply APN profiles and cannot handle restrictions such as the latest models.

　Reviewing these trends, any mobile phone company, brand, and MVNO company, in whatever form, can be associated with contract additions by dealing with iPhone or using it on their own company's lines. In particular, in the transfer of MNP, iPhone is the easiest platform to transfer the environment, so companies have launched quite hot sales measures. However, in the past few years, we have heard a lot of negative opinions on how to deal with such iPhone emphasis, but the Ministry of General Affairs has also issued a policy taking into account this situation, and its effect is limited, and we have not seen the result of major changes in market flows.