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The story
The “residual value loan” (zan-kure) plan, familiar from car sales, is now spreading to smartphones too. Under NTT Docomo’s “Itsudemo Kaedoki Program,” customers who agree to return their device after 23 months can keep their monthly payments down in the ¥2,000s. A 5ch thread reacting to the news kicked off with “Why would anyone do this — it’s not a good deal for the buyer at all,” and the discussion snowballed into price comparisons with older mid-range Android phones, the hassle of switching from iPhone to Android, and what happens if you lose or break the device — all real concerns for anyone actually weighing whether to sign up.
“Residual value loans” are spreading to smartphones too
A “residual value loan” (zan-kure) plan, common in car sales, has now arrived for phones as well. With this type of loan, a future trade-in value (the residual value) is set in advance, and the buyer only finances the remaining portion of the purchase price.
NTT Docomo offers this under the name “Itsudemo Kaedoki Program” (roughly, “Trade-In Anytime Program”). The plan assumes the device will be returned at the 23-month mark. For example, on a phone priced at ¥100,000 with a residual value of ¥50,000, the buyer only pays off ¥50,000 over 23 months — working out to just under ¥2,200 a month. If you keep using the phone past month 24, you can pay off the remaining residual value in new installments.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Nobody's looking at your phone that closely anyway.
It matters a lot when you're in elementary, middle, or high school though.
I guess that stuff's more like fashion for some people though.
Doesn't mean much to those of us who paid ¥200,000+ upfront for a 'Poor-droid' (a jokey mashup of 'poor' and 'Android').
Android covers everything from top to bottom, so it varies wildly
Some models have always been choppy, others never were.
They go up to 240Hz now
High-refresh-rate smartphones
https://macha795.com/refresh-rate-sp/
You keep paying even after you can't use it anymore.
I do spend money on my MacBook and Let's Note though, since those are essentials.
but then my nephew/niece got a phone around 6th grade
something like 'Xiao Xiao' (not quite sure that's right, might be a garbled brand name) — and that phone really did move like that
then again, that was one of those ¥1 phones marketed as a kid's first smartphone, so…
'Buttery smooth' is a good thing, you know.
your in-game purchases reset and you end up on a completely different cloud ecosystem
once you commit to a platform, there's no escaping it.
And Apple exploits exactly that to keep its faithful locked in.
Planning to get a Google Pixel, for what it's worth.
Almost a year ago, the Kaedoki plan had the base iPhone 17 at ¥545/month
The price in Re: #1 is way too high.
Do people just want an excuse to say 'zan-kure'?
Meanwhile I'm stuck on Nihon Tsushin (a budget MVNO).
Throw in a ¥500 insurance plan (or something even cheaper) and you're covered with zero penalty at return time
Insurance runs about ¥12,000 over 2 years, but you'd pay for coverage on a phone you bought outright too.
I bet a lot of people go with rental-style plans and switch carriers every 2 years
Even if you buy outright, the battery's shot after about 2 years anyway.
Had an iPhone 14 on Docomo for about ¥770/month, for 2 years
No charge-limiting feature, so max charge capacity dropped to 80%
Dropped it once and chipped a corner, but Docomo's inspection is lenient so the return went through fine
Switched to Rakuten Mobile and got the iPhone 16e — it's been 10 months, and since I capped charging at 80%, the battery's still holding at 97% capacity
No scratches, and I've got insurance on it
Aiming for the iPhone 17 next
I can't stand even a 1mm scratch, so I have no plans to ever buy one outright.
I've kept every phone I've ever had, going back to my old flip phone
They probably don't even turn on anymore though.
eating the same food, going to the same places
falling into the same routine every day
iPhone users mindlessly reach for another iPhone without even thinking about it
That's really not good for your brain
Alternating with Android now and then is just the right balance.
You lose access to buying your apps.
Background and key points of this discussion
The “zan-kure” (residual value loan) scheme originally comes from car sales: you subtract an estimated future trade-in value (the residual value) up front, then pay off only the remainder in installments. Docomo’s “Itsudemo Kaedoki Program” applies the same idea to smartphones — agree to return the device after 23 months, and your effective monthly cost can drop into the ¥2,000s. The catch, often overlooked, is that this isn’t really “ownership” so much as a de facto rental: lose or damage the phone within those 23 months and you’re on the hook for a hefty bill that includes the residual value. In the thread, some argued that on pure price, an older mid-range Android is still the cheaper option, while others countered that iPhone users get trapped by high “switching costs” — from in-app purchases to cloud ecosystems — that make it hard to walk away regardless of the math. Several posters also raised practical questions about how much insurance actually covers damage risk at return time, which is worth checking before signing up for a plan like this.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Japanese buyers flock to the ¥3,940-a-month residual-value-loan iPhone.”
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