Some flip-phones are 4G enabled.
By Dileep Thekkethil
BENGALURU: When the whole world is after smartphone and touch based devices, people in Japan still prefer flip-phones with buttons, which were believed to have met the dead end years ago.
According to a report released by MM Research Institute, flip-phone shipment in Japan grew 5.7 percent which is close to 10.58 million units and on the other hand, unlike in other countries, the smartphone sales in Japan registered a 5.3 percent fall, which is close to a deficit of 27.7 million units.
Interestingly, flip-phones have a huge market in Japan despite the proliferation of smartphones worldwide. Also to be noted is that Japanese companies like Sony and Panasonic play a prominent role in increasing the global smartphone sales.
Surprisingly, the increase in the flip-phones sales in Japan has been consistent for the last two years, which is in sharp contrast to fast depleting global flip-phones sales. During these two years, smartphone sales in Japan dropped considerably.
According to MM Research’s Hideaki Yokota, who spoke to Reuters, “Smartphones are also peaking in terms of functionality and they tend to last a long time as well, so there are fewer renewals.”
He also said that the flip-phones trend is temporary, as last year more people opted for a replacement of their old fashioned flip-phones with smartphones. Flip-phones dubbed as “Galapagos” phones due to their unique features explicit to Japan, has been part of the culture and Japanese society for so long that many from the older generation clinched on to until now.
These flip-phones which till now lacked features such as 4G, have even started rolling out 4G enabled devices with Android apps that can be accessed only by using buttons. Also, like other feature phones, these devices can last over a day with one cycle of battery charge.