Android gains ground on Apple iPhone in Japan during last 6 months of 2010

The Japanese market hasn't taken to the green robot like the U.S. has. Still, thanks to the Samsung Galaxy S, the number of Android users in Japan surged from 435,000 in June of last year to 2.2 million at the end of the year. But according to figures from comScore, during the same time period of 6 months, Japanese Apple iPhone users rose from 2.56 million to 3.79 million. So Android closed the gap with the iPhone by approximately 540,000 users in the last 6 months of last year.

Don't let the statistics mislead you. The Apple iPhone only recently made it into Japan's top 5 cellphones. Traditionally, the country has favored featurephones. Even though the number of smartphone users in Japan grew at a blistering 33.5% rate over the last quarter of 2010, that brought the number of Japanese smartphone users up to only 6.9% which means that there is plenty of room for both platforms to make some ground in 2011.

With Apple in 5th place in Japan, the top cellphone manufacturer is Sharp with an 18.8% share of the market. Panasonic (16.6%) is second and third is Fujitsu with a 15.1% slice of the pie. Kyocera is fourth with 12.7%, followed by Apple and its 12.2% share.

source: comScore via electronista