Our Handset Country Share Tracker (HCST) service recently published the Japanese Handset Vendor Share by Operator Report for Q1 2014, and we tracked that Apple took the top spot at all three big operators, NTT Docomo, SoftBank and KDDI in Q1 2014. Apple competed with Sony, neck and neck at NTT Docomo, but demonstrated invincible performance at both SoftBank and KDDI.

It would be worth noting that ZTE, a Chinese handset maker, keeps maintaining the 3rd largest handset vendor at SoftBank since Q2 2013, based on the steady sales of its specialized feature phones for kids. This report, available to our paid clients, tracks 17 handset vendors' marketshare by quarter at all major mobile operators in Japan.