Apple’s iPhone in Japan: latest consumer research results
Two days, two mentions of Apple’s iPhone! This time, however, rather than trying to shoehorn it into an existing survey, japan.internet.com reported on a survey by conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into Apple’s iPhone.
Demographics
Between the 9th and 11th of January 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 80.0% of the sample was male, 10.9% in their twenties, 36.4% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.
This is also well-timed with regards a report on Forbes about the iPhone (thanks Gen!) which takes the rather safe line that the latest NTT DoCoMo 905i series does everything and more already, and that the price tag is rather prohibitive. Looking at Q1SQ2 below, it seems that almost no-one is willing to pay the price it was initially offered at in the USA, but well over a quarter of the potential customers are willing to pay around the current market value. This also ignores the fact that the previously-mentioned 905i series is selling, and selling well, at over 50,000 yen on a standard pricing plan, and of course the up-front cost is just a fraction of the total cost of ownership. To compare, in the USA the cheapest unlimited data plan costs $59.99 with 450 free minutes, 5,000 evening and weekend minutes, and 45 cents per minute after that, whereas in Japan the cheapest 905i plan is 2,000 yen (excluding tax) for 25 free minutes (300 free minutes would be 8,000 yen!), 400 yen for answering machine and call waiting service, 200 yen for iMode walled-garden functionality, 5,700 yen pake-houdai full unlimited data packet plan for full browser, and then 40 yen per minute afterwards. This makes a USA iPhone cost around $1,839 for two years including $399 for the handset, or about 200,000 yen, versus a minimum 249,200 yen for a 905i series phone including the 50,000 yen handset cost, not forgetting that a Japanese tend to upgrade more frequently than once every two years, making a basic 905i about 25% more expensive than an iPhone. If one compares the package with a similar amount of minutes, the price becomes 393,200 yen, almost double the price! To be generous to NTT DoCoMo, after a year you may become eligible for a 35% discount, rising to 50% after 10 years, so a worst-case scenario is closer to 333,140 yen, only 66% more expensive, and a best-case of 221,600 yen, still 10% more expensive than an iPhone. Similar costs apply to the other main carriers, SoftBank and au.
If you want to read more on the iPhone in Japan, please view my article on why Apple’s iPhone will succeed in Japan, or catch up on all past articles on the iPhone.
Research results
Q1: Have you heard of Apple’s iPhone? (Sample size=300)
Yes (to SQ1) 85.2% No 14.8% Q1SQ1: How familiar are you with the Apple’s iPhone? (Sample size=281)
Know a lot about it (to SQ2) 18.1% Know a bit about it (to SQ2) 55.5% Just know the name 26.4% Q1SQ2: If Apple’s iPhone went on sale in Japan, might you like to buy it? (Sample size=207)
Yes (to SQ3) 51.7% No 19.3% Don’t know 29.0% This percentage wanting to buy is up over 11 percentage points from when JR Tokai Express Research last asked the question.
Q1SQ3: Apple’s iPhone has both 4GB and 8GB models, but if you were to buy the 4GB model, how much do you think is a reasonable price for it? Note that when it first went on sale in the US, it cost 499 dollars, or around 60,000 yen. (Sample size=107)
Under 10,000 yen 1.9% 10,000 to 19,999 yen 13.1% 20,000 to 29,999 yen 27.1% 30,000 to 39,999 yen 27.1% 40,000 to 49,999 yen 22.4% 50,000 to 59,999 yen 6.5% 60,000 to 69,999 yen 1.9% 70,000 to 79,999 yen 0.0% 80,000 to 89,999 yen 0.0% 90,000 to 99,999 yen 0.0% Over 100,000 yen 0.0% Don’t know 0.0% Other 0.0%
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, or check out my weekly newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
Read more on: iphone,jr tokai express research,mobile phone
Subscribe to feed
Send to mobile
Subscribe to 世論 What Japan Thinks newsletter
Louis said,
January 17, 2008 @ 00:12
We all know the superior cell phones come from Japan, so is this just an Japanese infatuation with American products? However, the iPhone does look competitively priced in that league of phones.
Drew said,
January 17, 2008 @ 01:25
@Louis: I suppose it depends on your definition of “superior”. Japanese cel phones may have a lot of features, but personally I find them big and clunky compared to their European counterparts, and even now they can not do English predictive text input. Give me a nice Nokia any day of the week.
Craig Lloyd said,
January 17, 2008 @ 08:25
Actually, the comparison is a little misleading since you can sign up for a 50% reduction in monthly fees immediately now and no longer have to wait 10 years for the discounts to build up. But you then have to pay 3000 yen escape/cancellation fee.
Harvey said,
January 17, 2008 @ 12:41
Slightly off topic, but I think that Apple’s new MacBook Air will sell better in Japan than it will in the US. On US forums I see people saying that they wouldn’t mind if it weighed 2 more pounds, just give me an optical drive and more ports! My tech friends in Japan though are always searching for smaller-lighter-thinner. Not sure, but if the lackof ports and such doesn’t turn Japanese consumers away, I think they’re going to love the MacBook Air!
Regarding the iPhone, I don’t think the fact that Apple is an American company has anything to do with it. I think Japanese customers think Apple products are cute and/or stylish, so they like them.
I could be wrong though.
Neil Duckett said,
January 17, 2008 @ 12:46
I can’t wait to get one.!
Ken Y-N said,
January 17, 2008 @ 12:57
Drew, do any European phones do Japanese predictive input? But, some phones (my wife’s P703i for instance) have horrendously bad English input (right-cursor adds the text from the input buffer to the main body rather than accepting the current letter and moving onto the next, so you get horrendous cursor position jumping and flicker and it’s harder than necessary to make corrections), considering that it is quite often used by Japanese.
Craig, yes, the comparisons are a bit wooly at best, but I know that when AT&T started selling the iPhone they produced a special extra-cost plan, so who knows what they’ll do in Japan? Will they allow people to carry over their existing discounts to the iPhone?
Harvey, my Panasonic T5 isn’t terribly heavy, but you have a point that in the US huge screens are preferred on portables whereas the A4 and B5 size is more common for Japanese salarymen. However, the MacBook Air does not run Windows, which will not win it many converts.
zahadum said,
January 17, 2008 @ 13:42
1) re: lack of ports on new Airbook …
FIREWIRE!???
wtf is apple doing shipping a product without something as essential as WF800?! …
and where are the fw3200 models?! — the spec was locked down last year already!
2) wimax:
why didnt apple use mwny as the occassion to _selectively_ test the market for 4G?!
if apple is going to eliminate disc (optical & magnetic) storage, then it needs to replace it with a KICK-ASS (metropolitan-grade) wireless alternative … wifi (which is only for hotspots) strands Airbook users in no-man’s land!
the iTouch and the Airbook would have been perfect choices to roll-out wi-max 6 months before Intel has an integrated - ie commodity - solution available for the cloners!
the reason that apple cant meet the obvious need to deliver another game-changer this year: apple can not do REAL innovation on a sustained basis — it is self-satisfied with flashiness at the expense of substance.
it’s time for Jobs to go!
zahadum said,
January 17, 2008 @ 13:47
as for the ipod at mwny’08 …
thye big disappointment was the obvious omission of RFID as part of a general-purpose e-payment/-eshopping (the bricks & mortar kind, that is).
in asia cell phones are already part of a wireless wallet …
how does apple thinks it will do _well_ in asia (not just /ok/ but /well/) without having such a basic feature?
it’s the same kind of blunder as shipping the iphone without a video camera! …
ie it is part of the more general problame at apple — too much concern for pretty icons & not enough concern for basic functionality.
zahadum said,
January 17, 2008 @ 13:49
re: ports on Airport - cotnt’d:
3) oh yeah, PC EXPRESS card!?
how can anyone ship an premium laptop without frigging slots for mediacard reader and for general-purpose expansion?!?!
wtf is going on at cupertino?
Brian said,
January 17, 2008 @ 15:47
Uh, PC express slot? For what? flash card Media? Duh, spend $10 on a card reader for the USB slot. You don’t want to carry it, then get two of them, duh, that would look as stupid as your typical Dell PC if you put it on the Air. PC card slots are rarely if ever used on a Mac where you don’t have to plug a card in to get wireless. Firewire would be nice, but then again, the USB drives are way cheaper and almost as fast (usb II is almost as fast as original firewire that is).
Pretty slick notebook. The real news is iTUnes content on DVDs soon (Fox at least) and streaming HD.
Someday I would like to see them put out a basic model at a low cost just to see how many people would switch, but that would pollute the brand a bit.
Drew said,
January 17, 2008 @ 18:08
@Ken My buddy just got a Softbank 770NK, which is their name for the Nokia N77. It’s not the X01NK smart phone, just a regular phone. It does Japanese and English predictive text. Guess it wasn’t a real big seller though, because it has compact size instead of a TV; Softbank have already discontinued it and are just selling off the remaining stock. I am quite jealous of it as it seems much more flexible than any of the ones made by Japanese makers specifically for one phone company.
Japanes Mobile Music Bits: IPhone; Piracy; Yahoo - Pocket.Info - Mobile 2.0 said,
January 17, 2008 @ 22:09
[…] the iPhone, and of those 73.6 percent said they knew more about it than just the name according to What Japan Thinks. So, of those who knew anything about about the iPhone, 51.7 percent answered "yes" to […]
iPhone in Japan said,
January 19, 2008 @ 22:55
as much as I love Japanese phones functionality I hate their usability and user interface…hope Jobs will announce 3G Japanese version together with SDK at the February iPhone event
Scott said,
January 29, 2008 @ 15:25
Ken Y-N stated <> Wrong. ALL current Macs (read intel based) can INDEED run windows. Check your facts. Boot Camp. Parallels.
Ken Y-N said,
January 29, 2008 @ 16:32
Scott - I stand corrected. However, to run Windows on it you need also to buy a DVD drive and a copy of XP, inflating the price, and anyway, I wonder what percentage of the average consumer are even aware of the dual boot capabilities? Indeed, that might make a nice survey to report on.