世論 What Japan Thinks

Just about the only thing in Japan that is noticably cheaper than anywhere else is broadband, with 4,000 yen per month (US$40, UK&147;20 or so) being on the expensive side for proper broadband (often 10 Mbps or more). To see how that low price is shaping the market, please study this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet usage .

Demographics

Over the 30th of April and 1st of May 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitors completed a private internet-based questionnaire. In the sample the male:female split was exactly 50:50, 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

The article also notes that the broadband market was worth just under 1.2 trillion yen in 2007, (about 12 billion US dollars), and is predicted to be nearly 1.25 trillion yen this year, and over 1.4 trillion yen by 2012.

The report also does not consider cable to be broadband!

Research results

Q1: What sorts of things do you often do on the internet? (Sample size=300, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Web mail	264	88.0%
Online shopping	234	78.0%
Video delivery service	146	48.7%
Internet auction	134	44.7%
Blogs	95	31.7%
Music download	75	25.0%
SNS usage	71	23.7%
Instant messenger	50	16.7%
Online gaming	47	15.7%
Home page creation	46	15.3%
Bulletin board	42	14.0%
VoIP (Voice over IP)	24	8.0%
File sharing	15	5.0%
Other	35	11.7%

When asked what sites they often viewed, tops were 90.0% using Yahoo! and other portals, then 36.0% using news sites, 35.0% using corporate sites, 31.0% on blogs, 23.3% on SNSs and so on.

Q2: What kind of internet connection do you have at home? (Sample size=300)

FTTH (fibre-optic)	44.0%
ADSL	38.3%
CATV (cable)	12.3%
ISDN	1.3%
Other	1.0%
Don’t know	3.0%

Q3: Which internet service provider do you use? (Sample size=300)

Yahoo! BB	23.7%
OCN	12.7%
Plala	7.7%
@nifty	7.3%
auonenet	6.0%
BIGLOBE	5.7%
So-net	5.3%
USEN	4.0%
eo	2.7%
@TCOM	1.0%
BBIQ	1.0%
WAKWAK	0.7%
MEGAEGG	0.7%
AOL	0.3%
Pikara	0.3%
SANNET	0.0%
isaonet	0.0%
Other	21.0%

Q4: Are you satisfied with the speed of your connection? (Sample size=300)

Extremely satisfied	8.7%
Somewhat satisfied	58.3%
A little dissatisfied	24.7%
Completely dissatisfied	6.7%
Can’t say either way	1.7%