Smartphones have spread rapidly in Japan in recent years, but there still seems to be strong demand for feature phones, or so-called "Galapagos" phones, according to recent data.
The domestic mobile phone market has been described as the "Galapagos Islands" because handsets come with a variety of functions unique to Japan (the real Galapagos Islands are famous for the endemic species that inhabit them).
Tokyo-based MM Research Institute, a market research body, said last week that year-on-year shipments of feature phones, which typically open like a clamshell and come with physical buttons, increased in fiscal 2014 for the first time in seven years.
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