According to a recent study conducted by MM Research Institute, Apple and their iconic iPhone practically dominates the smartphone market of Japan and by the end of the fiscal year in March, Apple’s iPhone held 72% of the Japanese smartphone market with 2.34 million handsets.

According to the article reported by electronista, the closest rival to the iPhone in Japan was Droid Incredible maker HTC with only 11.1% while local Toshiba came in with just 6.8%.

Shipments of the iconic iPhone were more than double the 1.1 million units which shipped in the previous year and Apple’s quarterly results note that quarterly shipments in Japan for early 2010 are up some 183% when compared to the previous year.

The domination of the iPhone in the Japanese smartphone market has been credited to the “rough state” of rival operating systems, while both Windows Phone and the Android platform will only gain traction in Japan this year.