世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone body types. Previous surveys have indicated the Japanese love for both clamshell designs and skinny models.

Demographics

Over the 11th and 12th of April 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based survey. All the respondents were mobile phone users living in Tokyo and the surrounding area. As usual for Cross Marketing, there was a 50:50 male and female split, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I was surprised to see only one person say they had a Sharp’s AQUOS Keitai. This is the best selling phone design, featuring a quite stunning hinge that they call the Cycloid, it seems. The phone opens like a clamshell, but then the screen can be rotated 90 degrees around a central pivot to allow the user to watch One Seg television in landscape mode.

Survey results

Q1: What type of body does your mobile phone have? (Sample size=300)

Clamshell (to SQs)	83.3%
Rotating screen	8.7%
Slider	5.0%
Candybar	2.3%
Horizontal rotation	0.3%
Flip type	0.0%
Cycloid (AQUOS keitai)	0.3%
Other	0.0%
Don’t know	0.0%

Q1SQ1: When buying your current phone, were you conscious of choosing a clamshell? (Sample size=250)

Highest priority	16.4%
Not highest priority, but very aware of it	26.0%
Quite aware of it	28.0%
Just a little aware of it	6.4%
Not aware at all of it	23.2%

Q1SQ2: Do you think your next phone will also be a clamshell? (Sample size=250)

Definitely	12.4%
Perhaps	57.2%
Perhaps not	3.2%
Definitely not	2.0%
Don’t know, don’t care	25.2%