Samsung’s Emerging Market Is … Japan?

The first thing shoppers see when they enter the mobile phone section of Bic Camera, a seven-story electronics store in central Tokyo, is an ad for the iPhone 6S that stretches from the sales counter to the ceiling. Nearby are comparably large billboards for Sharp’s Aquos and Sony’s Xperia phones. Conspicuously absent from the marketing blitz is Samsung. Its Galaxy S6 is stashed in a corner, next to a Sharp-made flip phone aimed at retirees.

One-fifth of the smartphones shipped around the world are Samsung’s, but in the No. 3 economy, it’s hard to find one. Samsung has just 6 percent of the 36 million phone market in Japan, according to researcher IDC, while Apple has close to 50 percent. Globally, the Korean company still leads Apple, but in Japan it trails local brands such as Sharp, Fujitsu, and Kyocera.