Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) -- NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s Chief Financial Officer Masayuki Hirata said talks with Apple Inc. to sell the iPhone in Japan focus on the technological issues and division of profit.

``The handset is easy to use and can open new markets, which makes this an interesting proposition,'' Hirata said in an interview yesterday. ``We are in continuous contact with the company, but the specifics are still in the future.''

DoCoMo, Japan's biggest wireless carrier, has lagged behind KDDI Corp. and Softbank Corp. in monthly user gains since April. A partnership with the Cupertino, California-based company may help the Japanese carrier lure customers and end two years of profit declines.

The iPhone uses global system for mobile communications, or GSM, technology, which is older than the wideband code division multiple access, or W-CDMA, standard used by DoCoMo. Apple, which introduced iPhone in the U.S. and Europe last year, plans to start selling the handset in Asia this year using GSM.

``The global GSM market is measured in hundreds of millions of users, compared with 50 million W-CDMA subscribers in Japan,'' Hirata said. ``It's unlikely they will launch iPhone in Japan exclusively for DoCoMo.''

A rush to introduce iPhone handsets that work with W-CDMA may cannibalize Apple's GSM service in the countries where iPhone is already available, Hirata said. The switch to the high-speed standard will probably come as part of a global change for Apple, he said.

Different Business Model

DoCoMo also needs time to evaluate Apple's profit distribution model where the iPhone is sold under the maker's brand and revenues from services offered on the handset are split with the carrier, Hirata said. Japanese mobile phone service providers buy handsets from manufacturers and sell them as their own, he said.

KDDI, Japan's second-biggest mobile-phone carrier, in December said it held talks with Apple on iPhone. The handset would have limited sales in Japan as the country's phones are more advanced, KDDI's President Tadashi Onodera said at the time.

Apple has been also in talks with Softbank, the Wall Street Journal reported on Dec. 18. Arata Kurihara, a spokesman for Softbank's mobile-phone unit, declined to confirm or deny the report at the time.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: February 5, 2008 22:53 EST