Popular Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Corp. announced today through its spokesman Naoki Nakayama, an agreement reached with Apple Inc. which will ensure the iPhone’s first official access in Japan’s market.

At this point, details such as pricing, date of release and sales strategy are not available. Also, whether the deal is exclusive has not yet been confirmed either, being well known that Apple’s executives prefer such an approach.

The iPhone is expected to be very successful amongst the Japanese customers, who have already welcomed with great enthusiasm other Apple products such as the portable music player, the iPod.

Up to the end of March, Apple managed to sell 5.4 million iPhones all over the world and the continuously rising demand created several problems with the restock activity but at the same time fueled their efforts of finding new interested markets.

Apple has signed several exclusive deals for the iPhone all over the world, with clients such as AT&T Inc. in the United States, T-Mobile in Germany, O2 in Britain and France Telecom's Orange wireless arm in France.

Another partnership for the iPhone made with Swisscom AG, Switzerland's leading telecommunications company, is expected to kick in later this year and Apple’s plans for this year also include Mexico City-based America Movil, one of the world’s largest mobile network operators with more than 150 million subscribers in 16 countries, including the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay and Puerto Rico.

Softbank’s major market adversary and also industry leader DoCoMo is also believed to be planning a deal with Apple, but the rumor has not been confirmed by any of the two parts.