New Straits Times quotes MMRI:

Japan’s smart phone sales — 23.3 million this year — account for 56 per cent of the total mobile phone sales of the year

Yet, TomiAhonen Consulting, based on Ipsos data, ranks Japan’s smartphone penetration at just 14% per capita, tied 33rd with Brazil and Romania in a ranking of 42 countries. They follow that number with a caveat:

Japan and S Korea: These numbers are NOT indicative of how advanced phones are in those countries, while technically are reasonably accurate measures of ‘only smartphones’

Korea is ranked 20th, with 34%. It must help with penetration when some of your national champions are some of the top handset makers. (Canada, a particularly backwards nation when it comes to mobile, is 21st with 30% penetration.)

Japan on the other hand is still struggling with smartphone innovation (see my old post about this topic here). From the Straits times:

Commentators suggest phone producers need to install a system so that users cannot use the Internet while walking.