TOKYO (AFP) - The arrival of Apples iPhone 3G will force Japanese cellphone makers to revamp their handsets to allow increasingly sophisticated software, a senior official at Softbank Mobile said Wednesday.
Faced with increased competition, Japanese handset providers will have to provide more software-oriented machines like the touch-screen iPhone, said Tetsuzo Matsumoto, a senior executive vice president at Softbank Mobile.
"Its now the turning point," said Matsumoto, whose company is the only Japanese carrier so far to have launched the iPhone 3G in Japan.
The iPhones key advantage is that more features and applications can be added to suit the needs of users, he told a press conference.
Softbank Mobile launched Apples iPhone 3G for the first time in Japan in July, drawing long queues and helping the operator to add more subscribers.
But other operators, such as industry leader NTT DoCoMo, are more sceptical about the iPhones prospects of success in Japan.
Japans mobile phone market has developed differently than those in other countries. Here mobile operators, rather than handset makers, develop software and services, and foreign-made handsets have traditionally been unpopular.
NTT DoCoMo, the pioneer of third-generation (3G) telephones, has its own popular "i-mode" high-speed Internet service.
"I think Japanese handsets were uniquely ahead, but such uniqueness may not be so significant" compared with Apples approach, said Matsumoto.
Mobiles are becoming "more and more sophisticated, more and more PC-like. The conventional way of developing handsets will not work any more," he said.
Despite their popularity at home, Japanese handsets lag far behind those made by global leader Nokia in terms of overseas sales.
Softbank, Japans number three mobile telephone operator, was a late entrant to the competitive market, buying British giant Vodafones struggling Japanese unit for 15 billion dollars in 2006.
A Filipino auction site has announced plans to sell the iPhone 3G at a price much cheaper than the local market, says CNET. In a press briefing on Friday, Auction.ph unveiled a special program to put the iPhone on sale through its website. Angelo Hernandez, public relations chief at Auction.ph, currently says that the iPhone will be auctioned off at a starting price of just 1 peso (2 cents), increasing in cost through 0.50 peso bidding increments. There will however be a ceiling to bids, with a maximum price of 5,000 pesos ($110). 
