iPhone sales are booming in the US, but the “revolutionary” cellular device is being received in Japan like a cold bowl of miso: appealing, but not nearly hot enough.

When the apple isn’t ripe

For many in Japan, the cell phone is the most important tool in their life. More important than a watch, a laptop, a camera, a television, or a GPS, the Japanese cell phone is all these devices in one. So is the iPhone, but the Japanese aren’t buying it. In Japan, cell phones are used as plane and train tickets, to buy snacks and movie tickets. They are used as a kind of contactless credit card. The iPhone has no such capability, and its sales are suffering in Japan as a result.

Mobile money

They’re called wallet phones, and they can be used anywhere from the airport to a vending machine. So why can’t iPhones do this? Because they don’t have a FeliCa chip. Manufactured by Sony, the FeliCa was initially designed for money cards. The chip is synced with its owner’s credit/debit account, and initiates a wireless transaction with mutual authentication, to prevent fraud. But with the emergence of mobile FeliCa chips, Japanese cell phones were truly revolutionized. They became not just a phone, but a wallet.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes?

As of this article, Apple has not announced the release of any iPhone model that includes FeliCa technology. And unless Apple incorporates it into their Japanese models, it’s unlikely that iPhone sales will rise among Japanese consumers. Until the iPhone is competitively priced (it’s currently $500 more than the more popular and powerful wallet phones) and utilizes FeliCa technology (which the Japanese have had for years), its sales in Japan will be dwarfed by the status quo.