Have you actually used any Japanese phones? They got nice screens and camera, that is all. Imo the hotspots are in USA, Korea and Scandinavia that got still most of the companies building the networks around globe, but relevance as phone manufacturers and trend setters is nothing like it was in 2000-2007. People over at Finland where using phones more than anybody else in the globe back in 2006, now they are behind UK. Mostly because of Symbian still having much larger market share than anywhere else.