I can't tell if you bothered researching the facts or reading the article, but I would guess that you didn't based on your comment. So here it goes: the iPhone is free because that's largely what the Japanese are used to. Most of their phones are free and come with cheaper contracts. SoftBank making the iPhone cheaper = trying to increase the sales by making it comporable price-wise to other phones, but it doesn't say anything about whether the sales are low or not. In fact, based on the claims of the Japanese journalist, it would seem that the sales are fairly good considering the amount and quality of competition.