世論 What Japan Thinks

ITMedia reported that Push To Talk, the new service being geared up for launch right now by DoCoMo in their new 902i range, is still completely unknown to almost four in five mobile phone users. Push To Talk is a walkie-talkie-like service, just press the button and talk, sending your voice over the IP network, so it is VoIP rather than a traditional call. However, their pricing is currently set to a rather high 5 yen per push, or a more reasonable 1,000 yen per month for unlimited access. But, as we will see later, less than a quarter of mobile phone users spend more than three minutes per day talking, and only just over a tenth feel they don’t talk enough.

Infoplant just released a survey (not yet available on their web site – it seems to have been done for “Keitai Best” magazine) carried out at the end of October amongst just 400 internet users (200 of each sex) aged 15 and above who owned mobile phones. (Presumably they used their internet monitor group and chose a demographically accurate cross-section, so the figures can be trusted.)

First, regarding Push To Talk, not even 10% were familiar with the features of the service, and just under 80% had not even heard of the term. However, when the main features were explained, about 60% said they would like to use it, with the number of women wanting to use it being 9 percentage points higher.

Next, the participants were asked about average daily voice call usage. Three-quarters of then spent less than three minutes per day talking, and in this group, 60% sent four mails per day; 20% of men and 25% of women sent over 10 mails per day. Only just over 10% reported that they don’t talk as much as they want to (presumably due to cost worries). In detail, the usage was as follows:

Less than 30 seconds	31.4%
30 seconds to 1 minute	14.5%
1 to 2 minutes	20.0%
2 to 3 minutes	10.3%
3 to 4 minutes	3.3%
4 to 5 minutes	7.0%
5 to 10 minutes	7.0%
10 to 20 minutes	4.3%
20 to 30 minutes	1.3%
Over 30 minutes	1.0%

The survey next asked about this kind of unlimited usage pricing plans. Just under 20% of men and about 25% of women wanted to use it, and just under 30% of men and 40% of women did not, leaving well over a third still undecided. Looking at how much people would be prepared to pay for such a service, the following data was obtained:

	Male	Female
Up to 1000 yen per month	57.5%	68.0%
Up to 1500 yen per month	20.0%	20.0%
Up to 2000 yen per month	16.5%	9.5%
Up to 2500 yen per month	3.5%	1.0%
Up to 3000 yen per month	2.5%	1.5%

About 45% of the participants were DoCoMo users, 30% au, and just over 20% were VodaFone. VodaFone are currently pushing their Love Teigaku, unlimited voice calls and mail to one person for 315 yen per month, but just over 10% expressed a definte interest in applying, and another 10% wanted to investigate, whilst almost 25% would not join such a scheme.

When asked who they would most like to phone if they signed up for such an unlimited usage plan, for men 35% chose family, 40% friends versus almost 50% and 35% for women. Less than 20% chose a lover, which seems at odds with the Vodafone marketing push.