AU by KDDI to carry iPhone 5 in Japan

* The AU's iPhone is appeared to be iPhone 4S.

Nikkei Business scooped the news on Thursday, September 22 that AU by KDDI, a Japanese mobile phone carrier, will carry the new iPhone 5 in November 2011.

UPDATE: Nikkei (The different entity from Nikkei Business) said here that AU's iPhone 5 may come out in early 2012 instead of November 2011 (2:22p, Thu 9/22/2011, JST)

UPDATE: The rumored iPhone 5 is now called iPhone 4S.

Like AT&T had their exclusive deal to sell iPhone for a several years in the US. Softbank, a Japanese mobile phone company, had the exclusive deal for 3 years.

Now the chain will be released to other starving Japanese mobile phone carriers who thought that the traditional Japanese Ktai phones could thrive for a while. They had the late start to be in the smart phone business.

AU by KDDI is the second biggest mobile phone carrier next to NTT Docomo. Their system is CDMA (same as Verizon in the US). Nikkei said they will likely to sell the same model as Verizon Wireless would carry in the US.

Nikkei Business said that KDDI may have to made the tight contrast with Apple, such as the guaranteed number of units being sold, and cheaper data rate plan than other cell phones as Softbank had to make.

This could be the hardship to Softbank. Like AT&T's slow connectivity criticism in the US, Softbank is known for the worse availability than NTT Docomo and AU by KDDI.

This will be a pleasing news for former AU users who had to switch to Softbank because of iPhone.

Many Japanese mobile phone analysts would think that this could be the turning point to Softbank.