Telecommunications & Media
Japan\'s \'national phones\' fade into history as 3G shutdown speeds \'garakei\' exit
Japan’s clamshell feature phones known as “garakei” are fading from the market as the country’s last 3G networks shut down and smartphone adoption nears saturation. NTT Docomo ended its FOMA 3G service and i-mode this March, following earlier 3G closures by KDDI’s au and SoftBank. Smartphone users accounted for 98.3 percent of mobile users this year, while feature-phone shipments fell sharply.
