世論 What Japan Thinks

According to this survey by MyVoice, performed at the start of August of this year amongst 12,317 registered members of the MyVoice Community, the following views on electronic money are as follows. 7,002 women and 5,295 men took part in the survey, with almost 40% being aged 30-39.

Q: Select all the electronic money brands you know.

Suica (JR East)	71.3%
Edy (Bitwallet (ANA et al))	63.2%
WebMoney	35.7%
ICOCA (JR West)	34.9%
ChoCOM (NTT)	20.8%
BitCash	14.7%
Others	3.3%
Don’t know about electronic money	11.5%
No answer	0.2%

Q: Have you used electronic money?

Yes	37.2%
No	62.8%

Q: For those who have used electronic money, what brands have you used? (Sample size=4,582 I think)

Suica (JR East)	54.8%
Edy (Bitwallet (ANA et al))	34.7%
WebMoney	23.2%
ICOCA (JR West)	11.0%
ChoCOM (NTT)	5.7%
BitCash	3.9%
Others	4.4%
No answer	0.4%

Note that Suica and ICOCA are regional brands focused around the two conurbations of Tokyo and Osaka, so the overlap between the two brands might be pretty small, although in the Osaka area there has been adverts describing how the ICOCA can be used in the Suica area. I would also suspect that a lot of the Suica and ICOCA users are not using the wallet features of the card – the main use is perhaps just as an electronic season ticket. Personally speaking I didn’t use the electronic wallet portion until over a year after getting the card.

Q: For those who have used electronic money, what have you used it for? (Sample size=4,582 I think)

Travel tickets	55.6%
Convenience store	42.4%
Net shopping	23.2%
Kiosk (usually on station platform)	15.3%
Vending machine	5.0%
Theatre/event ticket booth	3.5%
Supermarket	3.3%
Pharmacy	2.7%
Department store	1.6%
Discount store	1.2%
Others	14.5%
No answer	0.4%

Q: From now on, do you think you want to use electronic money? (Sample size unclear. All participants perhaps?)

I want to use	19.3%
I might want to use	26.8%
I may or may not want to use	31.7%
I don’t really want to use	13.5%
I don’t want to use	8.1%
No answer	0.7%

Sample reasons for answers:

I want to use	34yo male	Cashlessness seems convenient
	20yo female	I want to get Miles
	33yo male	Points and other privileges
I might want to use	42yo female	I’ve got a Suica pass in mind
	25yo male	Handy in emergencies
	32yo female	It seems to be becoming necessary these days
I may or may not want to use	49yo male	Too many types, and the number of cards needed is inconvenient
	27yo female	Refilling the card is a pain. Still just a few places to use the cards.
	44yo male	If I had one I might use it (eh?)
I don’t really want to use	43yo female	I don’t feel I can trust the security aspect
	23yo male	I’m a cash man myself
	39yo female	I can’t yet really understand the whole idea
I don’t want to use	26yo male	I’m concerned that personal information will be disclosed
	30yo female	I’d probably lose all my money sense
	64yo male	It’s unnecessary

I can’t say I’ve seen any cards used outside of station ticket gates myself, but I wonder if people were including their standard credit cards in the list of places they had used these cards? Most Japanese credit cards come with an IC Card component, and most supermarkets have signature-less and PIN-less transactions that are just as good as electronic money. I’d be in the “probably don’t want to use” camp myself, even though I have an ICOCA. The private rail equivalent, PiTaPa, is post-pay, which I am still not 100% sure about myself, especially since even the season ticket component is not paid in advance.