Japanese heavy mobile internet users

InfoPlant performed a survey of mobile phone users, carried out through the main menus of internet-enabled phones from DoCoMo, au and Vodafone. 16,833 people replied during the survey, lasting one week in the start of September. 67.4% of respondents were female, and iMode users, Ezweb users and Vodafone Live! users were 57.4%, 20.9% and 21.7% respectively. This is another self-selecting survey with a prize draw as a carrot, so the answers should be taken in that light.

Q1: Tell me how often you access sites from your mobile phone

  All Male Female
About every day 73.8% 76.7% 72.5%
Four or five days a week 10.4% 9.4% 10.9%
Two or three days a week 10.9% 9.5% 11.6%
About one day a week 3.1% 3.1% 3.2%
Less than that 1.6% 1.3% 1.8%

Not surprisingly, the younger the user, the more frequently they accessed.

Q2: Are you on a flat-rate packet plan? (ie, unlimited internet access)

  All Male Female
My phone supports it, and I’m using it 58.0% 59.9% 57.1%
My phone supports it, but I’m not on it, but want to change to it 12.3% 11.5% 12.7%
My phone supports it, but I’m not on it, and won’t change to it 5.9% 6.2% 5.8%
My phone doesn’t support it, but want to change to one that does 20.8% 19.4% 21.6%
My phone doesn’t support it, and won’t change to one that does 2.9% 3.0% 2.9%

Breaking down the table in Q1 by usage of inlimited access plans, we get:

  Unlimited access users Not unlimited access users
About every day 85.7% 57.5%
Four or five days a week 6.8% 15.5%
Two or three days a week 5.5% 18.4%
About one day a week 1.3% 5.7%
Less than once a week 0.7% 3.0%

Q3: For unlimited access user, compared with before you started the service, what has increased? (Sample size=9,764; Multiple answer)

  All Male Female
Site Access Frequency 87.4% 89.7% 86.2%
Time spent at a particular site 60.0% 62.2% 58.9%
Number of games downloaded 29.0% 32.7% 27.1%
Number of non-game applets downloaded 20.1% 25.0% 17.7%
Number of ring tones downloaded 45.6% 46.5% 45.1%
Number of pay sites registered with 12.5% 12.6% 12.4%
Number of mails sent and received 36.9% 37.2% 36.8%
Number of times done shopping from mobile 14.3% 9.8% 16.7%
No change in particular 4.0% 3.3% 4.3%

The age breakdown has a couple of interesting spikes - ring tone download for teenagers is almost 50% more the next age group, and mail usage is about 25% to 30% higher for them too.

Q3A: For not unlimited access user, compared with before you started the service, what do you think might increase? (Sample size=7,069; Multiple answer)

  All Male Female
Site Access Frequency 66.9% 63.6% 68.4%
Time spent at a particular site 35.6% 34.8% 36.0%
Number of games downloaded 29.7% 32.9% 28.2%
Number of non-game applets downloaded 17.6% 20.6% 16.3%
Number of ring tones downloaded 41.2% 36.8% 43.2%
Number of pay sites registered with 7.9% 7.5% 8.1%
Number of mails sent and received 26.0% 23.6% 27.1%
Number of times done shopping from mobile 9.8% 6.9% 11.2%
No change in particular 12.1% 15.2% 10.8%

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or check out my weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting!

Read more on: ,,

Google
 
Web whatjapanthinks.com

Related articles:

  • Now some bad news about Sony
  • Mobile phones very popular gaming platform
  • Newspapers on return home, news surfing before bed
  • Japanese mobile phones and holidays
  • 1 Comment »

    1. Mobile phones very popular gaming platform » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,

      December 19, 2005 @ 23:22

      […] infoPLANT’s survey methods obviously indicate that they will most likely result in an over-representation of the heavy user demographic, but regardless this still presents an interesting snapshot on how some people use their mobile phones. One could argue that since a previous survey showed the majority of people were on unlimited usage plans (although the methodology of that survey was probably flawed), these consumers could more easily budget for pay games, and download them without worrying about additional transmission costs over and above the basic fee. Also note that almost all mobile phones come with built-in games, not just Tetris clones and the like, but pretty good quality commercial-grade RPGs and pet simulators. As for my own phone, I have a nice golf game, but I beat that and quit, and the shoot-em-up is no fun. I once downloaded a trial version of a pay-for game, but it took a long, long time and the game play was rather lacking, so basically I haven’t played any games at all this year. Q1: About how often do you play games on your mobile phone? (Sample size=8,984) […]

    RSS feed for comments on this post · TrackBack URI

    Leave a Comment