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For NTT Docomo, iPhone 5S release date is all about timing

Japanese carrier NTT Docomo is in talks with Apple about selling the iPhone 5S, a Docomo executive told a Japanese business daily.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
Brooke Crothers
Apple

A brief comment from an NTT Docomo executive points to the imminent introduction of the Apple iPhone 5S.

In and interview published Monday, the executive was addressing the possibility of NTT Docomo handling sales of the iPhone 5S, a widely expected next edition of Apple's smartphone.

"It would be difficult to start sales on the 10th," said NTT Docomo senior executive vice president Kazuto Tsubouchi, in an interview with Japan's Sankei Shimbun, a major business daily.

Tsubouchi was referring to September 10, the day Apple is rumored to announce the iPhone 5S and other phones.

NTT Docomo is Japan's largest carrier but does not sell the iPhone. It has been in talks with Apple over the iPhone since at least 2011.

"Docomo is ready but timing is the problem," he told the newspaper.

A report last week from Japan's Nikkei business daily said that SoftBank and KDDI will handle sales of the iPhone 5S and 5C starting on the 20th.

Next month, Apple is expected to announce the iPhone 5S as well as a lower-end version of the iPhone rumored to be called the iPhone 5C.

[Via BrightWire News]