Although it wasn’t mentioned at the iPhone event, Apple announced today that it has partnered up with Japan’s NTT DoCoMo to offer the iPhone this fall. The company just issued a press release confirming the deal with the carrier.
DoCoMo was the last major provider in the country to not offer Apple’s popular handset, after years of failed negotiations. But it appears someone gave in, because the carrier will be selling both new iPhones on September 20th…
From Apple’s press release:
“We’re thrilled to offer the incredible new iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c to our customers,” said Kaoru Kato, President and CEO of NTT DOCOMO, Inc. “We know our customers will enjoy the amazing experience of iPhone on DOCOMO’s high-quality network.”
“NTT DOCOMO has built an impressive network, the largest in the nation with over 60 million customers,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve enjoyed tremendous success with iPhone in Japan, in fact it’s the top selling smartphone in the country, and we look forward to delivering iPhone into even more customers’ hands through NTT DOCOMO.”
Apple is also rumored to have recently struck a deal with Chinese carrier China Mobile, but no announcement has been made yet. It has been discovered, though, that both the 5s and 5c support the carrier’s odd TD-LTE network.
Analysts believe that the two new deals could be worth an additional 30 million units in iPhone sales next quarter.