He added that last year was a strong year for renewals within the subscription cycle; people were looking to replace their presumably very old flip-phone and so this could just be one final hurrah for the flip phone. While the usual reasonings of an aging society and the culture of "galapagos phones", expressly designed for Japan, get wheeled out, there some easier to understand reasons why people cling to the feature phone series.

With a lack of touchscreen (even a new high-end flip-phone, coming soon with 4G LTE and access to Android apps can only be controlled through buttons), and generally smaller displays, the battery life (compared to smartphones), is far more manageable. Also, with some of the most expensive mobile phone contracts in the world, flip-phone contracts are notably cheaper -- because well, you're probably not going to use much data.