世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into portable digital musics players. Note that this survey is concerned with just hard disk or memory-based specialised music players; CDs and MDs are excluded, as are mobile phones with music playback capabilities, and PDAs.

Demographics

Over the 24th and 25th of October 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor pool who owned a portable digital music player successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample was male, 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 don’t really think there is much new in this survey, but I present it just as another data point that ilustrates Apple’s strength in the Japanese marketplace.

Research results

Q1: Which brands of portable digital music player do you have? (Sample size=300, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Apple	147	49.0%
Sony	72	24.0%
Panasonic	27	9.0%
Toshiba	13	4.3%
Rio	13	4.3%
Sharp	11	3.7%
iRiver	10	3.3%
Kenwood	8	2.7%
Creative	7	2.3%
Signeo	4	1.3%
Siren	3	1.0%
MPIO	3	1.0%
Seagrand	2	0.7%
Samsung	1	0.3%
Other	37	12.3%

From the 300, only 43 were dissatisified in some way with the player they used the most. They were ask the following question.

Q2: Which aspects of the player you use the most are you dissatisified with? (Sample size=43, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Poor functionality	16	37.2%
Lack of capacity	15	34.9%
Poor battery life	15	34.9%
Only supports a few file formats	10	23.3%
Transfer software difficult to use	7	16.3%
No LCD display	6	14.0%
LCD display is difficult to read	5	11.6%
Poor sound quality	4	9.3%
Data transfer is slow	4	9.3%
Poor design	4	9.3%
Fragile	4	9.3%
Heavy	2	4.7%
Bulky	1	2.3%
Limited customer support	1	2.3%
Other	4	9.3%

Q3: When choosing a portable digital music player, which points are important? (Sample size=300, up to three answers)

	Votes	Percentage
Price	200	66.7%
Capacity	119	39.7%
Sound quality	83	27.7%
Design	80	26.7%
Good functionality	76	25.3%
Size	75	25.0%
Supported file formats	50	16.7%
Battery life	44	14.7%
Weight	28	9.3%
Easy to use transfer software	23	7.7%
Data transfer speed	16	5.3%
Display clarity	15	5.0%
Toughness	15	5.0%
Display size	8	2.7%
Other	4	1.3%