Although China tends to attract most of the Apple-related headlines across Asia, Japan is no small player in the iOS ecosystem. And we’re now beginning to see concrete data to back up this suspicion. A new report from MM Research out of Asia today shows that iPhone sales topped seven million in 2011 across the nation of Japan. Those impressive figures translate to Apple being the country’s top smartphone vendor in 2011. As MMi reported earlier this spring, Apple now ranks as one of the most popular and widely trusted brands in Japan. Clearly, this surge in brad familiarity and comfort has helped to drive sales of Apple products in the country.
Apple, which breaks out Asia Pacific separately from Japan, had said during its second-quarter earnings report last month that sales in the country nearly doubled in the quarter to $2.6 billion. In the last three months, while Apple alone had 34.2 percent of Japan’s smartphone market, while all Google Android phones combined for 61.4 percent.
Earlier this year, Apple publicly revealed that Japan saw the biggest sales growth of any foreign nation during the fourth quarter of 2011 (the holiday quarter). For the three-month period, sales spiked a staggering 148 percent. Source: Wall Street Cheat Sheet  

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