—KPN Chief Calls iPhone “Useless”: Ad Scheepbouwer, chief executive of Dutch telecoms company KPN has called the iPhone “pretty useless,” gloating that its sales in Germany have done little to hold back subscriber growth at its German mobile operator E-Plus, reports the FT. Scheepbouwer told the newspaper, “I had one and I thought it was a pretty useless phone, to be quite honest. The battery ran out in no time. I didn’t like the touch screen.” Plus, the 70,000 iPhones sold since November in Germany was “not a particularly impressive number,” compared to the 700,000 new customers E-Plus added the fourth quarter. Still, Scheepbouwer said KPN would “be more than happy to sell” the iPhone in the Netherlands where KPN has half the market share. Scheepbouwer said he had spoken to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), though he did not know when they were planning to launch in the Netherlands. He added, “We hope we will be the party of choice.” No word yet from T-Mobile Germany how much Vodafone’s injunction to bar them from selling the iPhone—since overturned—has hurt their sales.

—NTT DoCoMo (NYSE: DCM) And Apple Talks Continue: Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo revealed that its talks with Apple to bring the iPhone to Japan have revolved around technological issues and revenue sharing (that old chestnut). Bloomberg reports that NTT DoCoMo CFO Masayuki Hirata said that while the “handset is easy to use and can open new markets…the specifics are still in the future.” The problem revolves around the fact that iPhone still uses GSM technology, while DoCoMo’s networks have already upgraded to the W-CDMA standard. As Hirata conceded, Apple probably won’t be rushing to introduce a 3G iPhone out just to satisfy the Japanese market, as it may “cannibalize” Apple’s GSM service in countries where the handset is already available. “The global GSM market is measured in hundreds of millions of users, compared with 50 million W-CDMA subscribers in Japan,’’ Hirata said. “It’s unlikely they will launch iPhone in Japan exclusively for DoCoMo.’’ Hirata added that it also needed time to “evaluate” Apple’s revenue share model—which he noted, is not how they do it in Japan.

—Apple Is World’s Third Largest Smartphone Maker: Finally, Canalys Research’s latest report puts Apple’s share of the US smartphone market in Q4 2007 at 28 percent. This is behind RIM’s 41 percent, but a good distance ahead of third place Palm (NSDQ: PALM) which has a 9 percent share. Plus, this puts Apple ahead of all Windows Mobile device vendors combined, whose share was 21 percent in the quarter. In the EMEA region, Apple is the fifth largest smartphone maker. Worldwide, they are the world’s third largest with a 6.5 percent share, behind Nokia (NYSE: NOK) (52.9 percent) and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) (11.4 percent).  The research firm notes for a company with one product and limited operator and country coverage, Apple has done well for itself, and its success is a “wakeup call to market leaders.” It predicts that 2008 will see other vendors playing catch up, and notes that Apple will have to keep innovating to stay in the game, as “experience shows…a vendor with only one smart phone design, no matter how good that design is, will soon struggle. A broad, continually refreshed portfolio is needed to retain and grow share in this dynamic market. (release).”

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