There are no "official" numbers -- presumably those only come directly from Apple -- but that doesn't mean other people aren't tracking sales. As of September,

There are no "official" numbers -- presumably those only come directly from Apple -- but that doesn't mean other people aren't tracking sales. As of September, a market research firm indicated the iPhone was selling roughly half as well in Japan as Apple was expecting: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143317323034023.html?mod=2_1571_topbox http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122143317323034023.html?mod=... The main reasons for poor sales given in that article are lack of hardware features, lack of emoji (Japanese emoticons), and high price. I believe a software update since then has added emoji, but the price has apparently not changed since August until now, so there is reason to suspect that sales are still slow... especially since Apple is not eager to divulge the numbers. The number of iPhone apps created by Japanese developers is not necessarily an indicator of popularity in Japan, since many of the apps could have been developed with the intent to eventually sell on the global marketplace (or locally for the iPod Touch).