According to a press release from SoftBank Mobile, the Japanese service provider has secured an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Japan this year. The deal will ensure the iPhone’s first official access in Japan’s market.

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. However, the iPhone maker was also flexible in Europe, where in some cases it allowed two carriers to distribute its gadget in the same country. 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.

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.

Late last month, TeliaSonera, an European telecom operator, disclosed that it had signed a deal with Apple to offer the popular mobile Phone to its subscribers in Scandinavia and Baltic States. The device will be available later this year in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. TeliaSonera has not given any other details of the deal, and it is yet unknown whether this iPhone will be the 3G one whose arrival everybody awaits.