Foreign mobile phones interest less than one in fifty Japanese
japan.internet.com published the results of goo Research’s 27th regular monthly survey into mobile phone upgrade needs. Over four days towards the end of August 1,000 mobile phone owners from their monitor group successfully completed an internet-based questionnaire. 55.3% of the group was female, 2.3% in their teens, 20.7% in their twenties, 42.0% in their thirties, 23.3% in their forties, and 11.7% aged fifty or more. I believe people were asked about their own personal phone rather than company equipment.
The almost zero interest in foreign phones (if we discount Sony-Ericsson) is both quite surprising and rather predictable to me. The design aesthetic of Western phones is quite different to the Japanese; fat stubby bricks versus thin rounded clamshells, to attempt to sum up the differences in a single phrase. Samsung is Korean, however, as might Pantech be (I’ve never heard of them before!), but I wonder if their non-existent sales is related more to poor model appeal rather than to nationalistic sympathies. Japanese phones do really poorly overseas (discounting Sony-Ericsson again) so perhaps the reasons are similar for both imports and exports?
Q1: What provider do you most use? (Sample size=1,000)
NTT DoCoMo 53.3% au (KDDI) 26.7% Vodafone (Softbank) 16.0% WillCom 4.0% These percentages have barely changed from last month’s survey.
Q2: Please tell me the maker of the mobile phone(s) you currently use. (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)
Sharp 18.1% Panasonic 17.3% NEC 17.0% Toshiba 11.4% Sanyo 8.1% Sony Ericsson 7.2% Mitsubushi 6.2% Casio 5.5% Kyocera 5.5% Fujitsu 5.1% Hitachi 1.7% Japan Radio Co (Nihon Musen) 0.4% Nokia 0.3% Motorola 0.1% Samsung 0.0% Pantech 0.0% Other 0.5% Don’t know 1.6% Note that there are 1,060 votes here, so perhaps most of the people who own more than one phone choose the same brand? Again, these ownership rates are barely changed from last month.
Also note that Sharp produces mobile phones for all four main providers; Panasonic
supports DoCoMo almost exclusively, although…ahh, that’s company confidential information!Q3: Please tell me the mobile phone maker you are currently most interested in. (Sample size=1,000)
Sharp 20.5% Sony Ericsson 10.3% Panasonic 8.5% NEC 8.3% Toshiba 3.1% Casio 3.0% Mitsubushi 2.7% Kyocera 1.9% Fujitsu 1.3% Nokia 1.2% Sanyo 1.0% Hitachi 0.4% Motorola 0.4% Japan Radio Co (Nihon Musen) 0.2% Samsung 0.1% Pantech 0.0% Other 0.1% None in particular 37.0% The only brands that have interest levels higher than their usage levels are Sharp, currently carrying out a massive advertising campaign to promote their Softbank/Vodafone AQUOS model, Sony-Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Samsung, although the last three still barely register on the buying public’s radar.
Q4: When selecting a mobile phone carrier, how important is it that they have a Smartphone in their model lineup? (Sample size=1,000)
Very important 4.1% A little important 14.2% Not important 23.6% Don’t really know 23.4% Don’t know what a Smartphone is 34.7%
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Japan Now & Then Owner said,
September 3, 2006 @ 01:25
What is a smartphone? And, does it do anything Japanese cell phones don’t already do?
Ken Y-N said,
September 3, 2006 @ 23:45
That’s a very good question! In my opinion, a Smartphone is a phone plus PDA capabilities, such as either a full keyboard or pen-based input, a big screen, WiFi, etc. A couple of the 902 series do things like PDF viewers and full browsers (not the cut down effort in most phones), but you’d have to add something like a word processor, full email client and flexible input to be really called a Smartphone.
It is a hard sell in Japan given that most phones come already stocked with scheduler, internet email and the like, though, and that none of the Japanese companies seem to offer one. Sharp are big in PDAs with their Zaurus, but they’ve never tried merging the two devices.
Mark said,
November 13, 2006 @ 18:48
I beg to differ. Wilcom in Japan has been marketing a range of smartphones using PDA handsets produced by Sharp ( WZERO line) . The Zaurus can be used with a PHS card and headset, but it is not a very elegant solution. Contrary to popular belief (outside Japan), early adoption of new technology is not so widely adopted if there is a learning curve or they need to read a thick user manual. This is solely the province of those who regularly frequent the electronics districts of Japan.
DoCoMo and KDDI will soon follow the smartphone route, depending on market forces, manufacturer tie-ups and existing partner relations.
Mark said,
November 13, 2006 @ 18:51
I forgot to add the rebadged smartphone - HTC handsets (also Windows Mobile) being sold by Softbank.
DoCoMo MAY provide more support for Blackberry in the future.
Ken Y-N said,
November 13, 2006 @ 22:19
Thanks for the extra info, Mark! Since translating that survey, I’ve learnt a bit more about the future market. I also realise that, yes, the WZERO is moderately popular. DoCoMo does have a rebadged Blackberry coming out next year, and they also have the M1000 from Motorola in the current line-up, but I’ve never seen it on the shelves.
Japan cell phone upgrade needs » 世論 What Japan Thinks said,
July 31, 2007 @ 22:42
[…] In this survey there was no questions regarding Apple’s iPhone, but it is interesting to note in Q3 that only 4% spend more than 30,000 yen on a new phone, or around US$250, half the cost of iPhone in the USA, although comparing sticker prices is potentially misleading as Japanese phones tend to be subsidised by the carrier, and they recoup their losses through the monthly bills. In Q4, over a third say they want Windows Mobile, although I strongly suspect that not many of them actually know what that means, as previous surveys have shown little interest in SmartPhones. […]