(Zhichao Network) On March 31st of this year, NTT Docomo quietly terminated its FOMA 3G network and, in doing so, shut down the i-mode mobile internet service. This move should not be underestimated—the network that sustained Japan’s flip phones has now gone offline.

i-mode was launched in February 1999 and operated for nearly twenty-seven years; FOMA 3G began its rollout in October 2001. In fact, au had already phased out 3G in 2022, and SoftBank followed suit in 2024, leaving Docomo as the last major carrier. With its shutdown, the 3G era for Japan’s major carriers has officially ended.

What is a ガラケー?

ガラケー, pronounced gara-kei, translates to “Galapagos phone.” The term may sound poetic, but it carries a rather poignant implication: products that evolve in isolation, no matter how advanced, fail to align with global standards.

This was the state of Japan’s mobile phone industry at the time. Local demand was so thoroughly met that manufacturers focused inward, pushing functionality to extremes and ultimately creating products that could not be exported.

How Advanced Were They Back Then?

In terms of capabilities, flip phones were no slouches. Features like One-Seg for mobile TV, infrared business card exchange, built-in FeliCa chips for transit cards and convenience store payments, full-device waterproofing, and a dot-matrix display on the outer screen showing train delays—these may seem commonplace now, but two decades ago, they were groundbreaking.

The issue was that all these innovations remained confined within Japan’s own ecosystem. The barriers were too high, blocking external influences while trapping users inside.

The numbers speak for themselves. According to MM Research Institute, only 912,000 feature phones were shipped in Japan during fiscal year 2025, marking the first time shipments fell below one million. Docomo’s own research added further context: including secondary phones, smartphones accounted for 98.0% of mobile devices in use by 2025, up from around 90% in 2021.

Yet another set of data challenges expectations: feature phones were used for an average of five years and four months, while smartphones lasted only two years and nine months. This isn’t merely nostalgia—many users kept their flip phones for the tactile buttons they could operate blindfolded, the long-lasting battery, and the absence of intrusive screen notifications.

The Elderly Challenge

That sense of calm became a barrier for the elderly. With the shutdown of 3G, seniors accustomed to physical buttons and tactile typing were pushed into smartphone training programs.

Yet surveys revealed a paradoxical finding: over 80% of elderly smartphone users said they “never wanted to switch back to a feature phone.” Incompetence and reluctance to let go coexisted, a blend of the era’s gentleness and harshness.

The Flip Phone Lives On—Just Not in Isolation

The flip phone form factor is not extinct. 4G-enabled flip models (known as garaho, running Android with 4G VoLTE, USB-C, and waterproofing) are still being sold; clamshell foldable screens continue the flip phone’s legacy of compact design in a new form.

Not to mention the global influence: i-mode inadvertently gave birth to emoji, a universal language of expression; Japanese phones pioneered waterproofing, lightweight design, and quiet operation, all of which were gradually adopted by later smartphones.

In my view: the flip phone’s decline wasn’t due to inferiority. On the contrary, it was too advanced, too self-reliant, transforming itself into a digital island. The cost of isolation is steep—when you grow too comfortable to adapt, you gradually lose the ability to integrate into universal platforms.

But the flip phone won’t truly vanish; it will evolve into new forms. What it truly left behind—emoji, lightweight design, and that sense of calm—has already been quietly absorbed by smartphones. What’s gone is the “isolated island ecosystem,” not the flip phone itself.