世論 What Japan Thinks

I read the results of an interesting survey into how many Japanese had downloaded the new Firefox 3 release. The executive summary is that 5.5% of a sample of Japanese internet users from all walks of life had downloaded on release day, the 18th of June, then another 5.8% have downloaded since. However, 70.3% were unaware of the release, but after being informed of it through this survey, just another 6.9% wanted to download it, but 62.9% didn’t know, suggesting that there is qite a significantly proportion of Japanese internet users who are ignorant of Firefox’s existence.

Demographics

On the 3rd of July 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.5% of the sample were female, 14.5% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 30.3% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 5.8% in their sixties.

The full details of the survey may be found at the japan.internet.com’s report here.

Research results

Q1: Have you downloaded Firefox 3? (Sample size=330)

Downloaded on release day, June 18	5.5%
Downloaded after release day	5.8%
Didn’t know it was released (to SQ)	70.3%
Knew it was released, but didn’t download	18.5%

Q1SQ: Will you download Firefox 3 in the future? (Sample size=232)

Yes	6.9%
No	30.2%
Don’t know	62.9%
Other	0.0%

People were asked how many browsers they had, and 28.8%, or 95 people, said they had more than one installed. They were then asked the following question about which browsers they had sitting idle on their machines.

Q2: Which browsers are installed but not used? (Sample size=95)

	Votes	Percentage
Microsoft Internet Explorer	32	33.7%
Firefox	15	15.8%
Safari	14	14.7%
Opera	11	11.6%
Netscape	9	9.5%
Other	5	5.3%
None in particular	26	27.4%