Smartphones have spread rapidly in Japan in recent years, but there still seems to be strong demand for feature phones, or so-called "Galapagos" phones, according to recent data.

The domestic mobile phone market has been described as the "Galapagos Islands" because handsets come with a variety of functions unique to Japan (the real Galapagos Islands are famous for the endemic species that inhabit them).

Tokyo-based MM Research Institute, a market research body, said last week that year-on-year shipments of feature phones, which typically open like a clamshell and come with physical buttons, increased in fiscal 2014 for the first time in seven years.