世論 What Japan Thinks

In the west, I hear that Bluetooth-based telephone number and email address exchange is the standard way. However, this recent survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone address books showed very different habits in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 30th of July and the 3rd of August 2008 1,001 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 11.3% in their teens, 23.5% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

The main reason for Bluetooth not being used is that it is far from standard on mobile phones. I’ve looked before at Bluetooth in Japan, but why it has never taken off is a mystery to me, although the fact that infrared was already established as a standard on Japanese phones might have something to do with it.

I rarely exchange telephone numbers with people, but when I have it is always one person calls the other that we do, mainly as people can’t remember where to find the infrared menu options! For Q1, my mobile phone number is 090-xxxx-8128, but I haven’t a clue what the four digits in the middle are.

Research results

First, 937 people, or 93.6% carried mobile phones. The usual figure is around 95%, so I’m not sure if it’s significant why this is more than one percentage point lower than usual. These 937 were asked the following question.

Q1: Do you remember your own mobile phone number? (Sample size=937)

Yes	82.8%
No	17.8%

Q2: If you have to exchange mobile phone telephone numbers with someone, how do you do it? (Sample size=937, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Get other person’s number and call it	590	63.0%
Transmit via infrared	524	55.9%
Tell other person my number and get him to call it	491	52.4%
Pass, receive a memo	289	30.8%
Pass, receive business cards	91	9.7%
Display a QR code	12	1.3%
Use FeliCa chip to transmit	7	0.7%
Use a QR code on a business card, etc	5	0.5%
Other	32	3.4%

The FeliCa chip is the contactless IC card usually used for electronic payments, but on some models at least it seems to be able to transmit. Regarding displaying a QR code, some phones can display on screen these 2d barcodes representing an address book entry.

Q3: If you have to exchange mobile phone email addresses with someone, how do you do it? (Sample size=937, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Transmit via infrared	551	58.8%
Get other person’s email address and post to it	462	49.3%
Tell other person my email address and get him to post to it	401	42.8%
Pass, receive a memo	356	38.0%
Pass, receive business cards	111	11.8%
Display a QR code	21	2.2%
Use a QR code on a business card, etc	7	0.7%
Use FeliCa chip to transmit	6	0.6%
Other	52	5.5%

Q4: Do you have a QR code printed on your business card? (Sample size=937)

On business use card only	2.4%
On personal use card only	1.4%
On both personal and business use card	0.2%
On neither	51.4%
Don’t have any business cards	44.5%