4Q 2003 Japanese phone shipments: 90% cameraphones

IDC Japan reports that cellphone shipments in Japan reached 13.35 mn units in the fourth quarter of calendar 2003, up 17.9% year on year. That was a slight slowdown versus the 28.5% yoy rise in shipments for the whole year, to 50.7 mn units. Notable in the fourth quarter, however, was that cameraphones accounted for 90% of the total, and megapixel cameraphones accounted for 46%.

IDC is predicting that shipments will fall off in the first half of 2004 as the novelty of cameraphones starts to wane, though it's predicting that the share of W-CDMA handsets (mainly from DoCoMo) should grow to 15%-20% in 1Q 2004 from 7% in 2003.

In terms of manufacturer rankings, 2003 saw little change; NEC first, Panasonic second, Sharp third, followed by Toshiba, Mitsubishi Electric, and Sony Ericsson.

[Via CNET Japan (Japanese)]