世論 What Japan Thinks

One thing one may notice after being around Japanese salarymen is that their tools of the trade, as it were, are much smaller than that of the average American business-person, but they still do pack quite a considerable punch and they are rather proud of the features of their home-grown models. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not the headline and the preceding sentence have anything to do with a recent survey conducted by Yahoo! Japan Value Insight on the subject of notebook (laptop) computers and Japanese businessmen.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of August 2007 Yahoo! Japan Value Insight gathered the opinions of 16,526 members of their online monitor panel. All were male, and the sample had almost exactly 25% (plus or minus two people) in each of the age bands of twenties, thirties, forties and fifties. 14,037 of the sample, or 84.9%, went on domestic business trips at least once per month. This group was asked Q1. In addition, a smaller group of 2,000 businessmen registered with mpack, the mobile monitor group of Yahoo! Japan Value Insight, who went on business trips at least once a month carrying a notebook computer were asked the more detailed questions Q2 to Q8. This group was made up of 500 people in their twenties, 500 in their thirties, 500 in their forties, and 500 in their fifties. Note that business trip covers both day trips and overnight stays, or even just visiting another branch of the same company in the same city.

There’s a mass of fascinating data in this survey! For instance, Q1 on what people take with them on business trips; old guys prefer carrying a digital camera to a notebook computer; indeed why do almost three in ten take a digitial camera with them?

Although Panasonic loses out badly to Apple in the portable audio player battlefield, here they beat everyone in terms of sales and are only just edged out by the Mac in terms of user satisfaction.

Finally, I must add that I am another satisfied Let’s Note user.

Research results

Q1: When going on a business trip, what portable electronics are you sure to take with you? (Sample size=14,037, those who take regular business trips, multiple answer)

	All	Twenties N=2,887	Thirties N=4,000	Forties N=4,005	Fifties N=3,145
Mobile phone	94.4	95.8	95.3	93.9	90.4
Notebook computer	42.5	44.0	49.3	45.1	29.7
Digital camera	29.8	32.0	29.5	28.2	30.1
Portable digital audio player	29.0	42.3	33.4	25.7	15.5
Calculator	19.2	19.4	21.2	19.2	15.7
PDA	12.5	14.8	12.1	12.3	11.1
Game machine (Nintendo DS, PSP, etc)	10.8	20.0	15.0	5.5	2.5
MD, CD, other portable player	6.1	10.8	5.9	4.3	3.3
Other	1.5	1.1	1.5	1.9	1.4
None of the above	2.3	1.0	1.4	2.2	4.5

Q2: When choosing your notebook computer, what are the most important points you consider? (Sample size=2,000, up to three answers)

	All	Twenties N=500	Thirties N=500	Forties N=500	Fifties N=500
Lightness	75.0	60.5	74.2	79.4	79.5
Long battery life	50.3	41.4	51.2	56.8	54.4
Small form factor	35.5	35.4	35.8	35.8	34.2
Durability	33.4	32.2	30.8	34.6	35.8
High spec	27.9	32.8	27.4	25.8	25.4
Reasonable price	16.0	15.4	15.6	15.4	18.4
Trusted brand	9.4	8.4	8.6	9.4	11.0
Easy-to-use keyboard	9.1	8.0	12.5	8.6	9.0
High security	8.3	7.8	7.4	7.2	10.6
Good design	5.6	10.6	5.0	4.8	2.0
Clear display	5.0	5.8	3.6	4.2	6.4
Latest model	2.7	1.6	3.0	2.8	3.4
Water-resistance	2.0	3.2	2.0	1.8	1.0
Other	0.9	0.4	0.6	1.6	0.8
Nothing in particular	1.2	1.6	2.0	0.6	0.4

Q3: What is the brand of your notebook computer that you take on business trips? If you have more than one, choose the one you use the most. (Sample size=2,000)

Let’s Note (Panasonic)	20.2%
VAIO (Sony)	14.0%
ThinkPad (Lenova)	11.2%
dynabook (Toshiba)	10.9%
FMV-BIBLO (Fujitsu)	10.9%
DELL	10.7%
LaVie (NEC)	8.7%
Mebius (Sharp)	3.4%
Mac (Apple)	2.9%
HP	2.1%
SOTEC	0.8%
Other	4.5%

Q4: How satisfied are you with the notebook computer from Q3? (Sample size=2,000)

	Totally	Quite	Not really	Not at all
All	23.6%	59.8%	13.9%	2.8%
Mac (Apple) N=57	57.9%	38.6%	3.5%	0.0%
Let’s Note (Panasonic) N=403	42.7%	53.3%	3.5%	0.5%
VAIO (Sony) N=280	23.6%	65.4%	7.9%	3.2%
dynabook (Toshiba) N=218	16.5%	67.0%	15.1%	1.4%
FMV-BIBLO (Fujitsu) N=217	12.4%	68.2%	16.1%	3.2%
ThinkPad (Lenova) N=224	22.8%	57.6%	16.5%	3.1%
DELL N=214	13.1%	62.6%	20.1%	4.2%
LaVie (NEC) N=174	16.1%	54.0%	27.6%	2.3%
HP N=41	22.0%	46.3%	19.5%	12.2%
Mebuis (Sharp) N=67	10.4%	56.7%	31.3%	1.5%

Q5: Which aspects of the notebook computer from Q3 are you satisfied with? (Sample size=2,000, multiple answer)

Lightness	50.6%
Smallness	41.6%
Durability	29.2%
Long battery life	28.6%
Trusted brand	25.2%
High spec	20.3%
Easy-to-use keyboard	15.2%
Reasonable price	13.6%
Good design	13.5%
Clear display	9.9%
High security	6.6%
Latest model	3.9%
Water resistance	1.5%
Other	1.1%
Nothing in particular	6.0%

There was a detailed breakdown by model, but sadly the table for this was rather too small for me to read, plus due to various highlighting certain numbers were obscured. The highlights, however, were that the Let’s Note series lead the way in the first four categories, namely lightness, smallness, robustness and battery life, whereas most of the US brands and the ex-IBM Lenova scored badly in these categories. Sony did well only in design, and Apple won in respect to brand trust, high-spec nature, design, display quality and a high-level of security; perhaps the last one indicates an awareness of the susceptibility of Windows and its users to viruses. DELL and HP were seen as the bargain basement brand, and the ThinkPad’s robustness and keyboard quality were popular with their users.

Q6: Which aspects of the notebook computer from Q3 are you dissatisfied with? (Sample size=2,000, multiple answer)

Weight	35.6%
Lack of battery life	28.3%
Low spec	18.1%
Bigness	17.2%
Lack of newness	16.9%
High price	11.9%
Difficult to use keyboard	9.2%
Lack of water resistance	7.3%
Flimsiness	6.4%
Lack of clarity of display	5.0%
Bad design	3.9%
Poor security	2.6%
Dodgy brand	1.1%
Other	3.3%
Nothing in particular	13.4%

Q7: If you were to buy a new notebook computer, do you think you would choose a similar one? (Sample size=2,000)

	Same make, same series	Same maker, different series	Different maker	Don’t know
All N=2,000	35.0%	10.0%	23.2%	31.9%
Mac (Apple) N=57	68.4%	21.1%	3.5%	7.0%
Let’s Note (Panasonic) N=403	54.8%	8.7%	11.7%	24.8%
VAIO (Sony) N=280	42.4%	3.6%	29.5%	24.6%
dynabook (Toshiba) N=218	40.7%	12.5%	16.1%	30.7%
FMV-BIBLO (Fujitsu) N=217	27.0%	9.8%	24.7%	38.5%
ThinkPad (Lenova) N=224	26.7%	10.6%	22.6%	40.1%
DELL N=214	26.1%	12.4%	24.3%	37.2%
LaVie (NEC) N=174	17.9%	9.0%	29.9%	43.3%
HP N=41	13.6%	14.0%	40.2%	32.2%
Mebuis (Sharp) N=67	12.2%	4.9%	34.1%	48.8%

Q8: If you were to buy a new notebook computer, from which series of models do you think you would buy? (Sample size=2,000, up to three answers)

Let’s Note (Panasonic)	49.4%
VAIO (Sony)	39.0%
dynabook (Toshiba)	27.3%
FMV-BIBLO (Fujitsu)	20.4%
LaVie (NEC)	18.9%
DELL	16.0%
ThinkPad (Lenova)	13.3%
Mebuis (Sharp)	8.9%
Mac (Apple)	7.1%
HP	4.9%
SOTEC	0.8%
Other	2.7%