Japan’s three major mobile operators had sold nearly 14 million standard NFC-enabled smartphones and tablets as of January, according to the Mobile NFC Association, as the country continues to be among the leaders in rolling out NFC-enabled phones and SIMs. There are still few places to use the NFC devices in Japan, however.
NFC-enabled phones and tablets in Japan are hybrid models, supporting both standard NFC and Japan’s proprietary FeliCa technology. FeliCa is also part of the NFC standard, but standard NFC phones don’t work on FeliCa terminals in Japan. The hybrid devices contain both standard NFC chips and FeliCa chips.
Japanese telcos have rolled out a total of 70 models with the hybrid technology since January of 2012, when operator KDDI introduced the first model. NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest operator, and Softbank Mobile, the third largest telco after KDDI, began selling the devices in late 2012. Most of the models are made by Japan-based manufacturers, such as Sharp, Fujitsu, Sony and Kyrocera, but there are also models from Samsung, HTC and LG.
