Tokyo - Apple Inc's iPhone 3G debuted Friday in Tokyo, attracting more than 1,500 fans to the first sale, before being launched in the rest of the nation.

A long queue formed outside Softbank Mobile Corp's flagship store in Tokyo's fashionable Omotesando district early Friday morning.

"I want to try what's available on the iPhone as far as the new software goes," Jiji Press quoted a 25-year-old Japanese university student as saying. He travelled to Tokyo from Nagoya City in central Japan to win the first spot in the queue.

Sales of the iPhone were expected to help Japan's third-largest mobile phone carrier Softbank Mobile beat its rivals NTT DoCoMo Inc and KDDI Corp and lead the domestic market.

For Softbank customers signing up to a 24-month plan, the 8GB iPhone costs 23,040 yen (215 dollars), and the 16GB model 34,560 yen. Without subscription, the phones are 69,120 and 80,640 yen respectively.

Apple said its iPhone 3G networking system is twice as fast as the first generation iPhone and sports an improved built-in global positioning system.

The touch-screen device on the next-generation phone combines e-mail and internet access with the iPod media player. (dpa)