Apple iPhone less interesting than Panasonic, Sharp
We’re now two months into the iPhone era in Japan, so this 39th regular mobile upgrade needs survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com took a closer look at some of the issues surrounding this device.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 21st of August 2008 1,000 mobile phone-using members of the goo Research online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.2% of the sample were female, 2.0% were in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 40.8% in their thirties, 24.6% in their forties, and 14.3% aged fifty or older.
Note that for Q1 and Q2, for people with multiple providers or multiple phones, they answered for their main one only.
Apple on 0.3% for this survey is a difficult number to interpret. If you take the aproximate figure of 100 million mobile phones in Japan, this represents about 300,000 users, but figures suggest there has been about 100,000 iPhones sold in Japan. The age group of respondents is biased toward the iPhone demographic, and almost all of them own home computers, so it would suggest a bias, but how much is difficult to predict.
Q4 is a difficult one to interpret. Just over half of those surveyed do not welcome some of the phones; in English being not welcome has negative connotations, but it may be more correct to say that people are just not bothered.
Research results
Q1: Which mobile phone service provider do you use? (Sample size=1,000)
NTT DoCoMo 49.4% au by KDDI 27.9% SoftBank 17.8% Willcom 4.3% E-Mobile 0.6% Q2: Which company’s mobile phone do you currently use? (Sample size=1,000)
Sharp 24.9% Panasonic 16.1% NEC 11.0% Toshiba 10.7% Sony-Ericsson 8.3% Fujitsu 5.7% Casio 5.5% Sanyo 5.2% Hitachi 4.4% Mitsubishi 3.8% Kyocera 3.7% Samsung 0.7% Nokia 0.5% HTC 0.4% Nippon Musen 0.3% Pantech 0.3% Huawei 0.3% Apple 0.3% Motorola 0.1% Other 0.9% Don’t know 1.9% Q3: Which company’s mobile phones are you most interested in? (Sample size=1,000)
Sharp 21.3% Panasonic 9.8% Apple 8.7% NEC 8.2% Sony-Ericsson 5.8% Casio 3.7% Toshiba 2.2% Fujitsu 1.4% Kyocera 1.4% Hitachi 1.1% Nokia 1.0% Sanyo 0.8% Samsung 0.6% HTC 0.2% Mitsubishi 0.1% Motorola 0.0% Nippon Musen 0.0% Pantech 0.0% Huawei 0.0% Other 0.2% None in particular 33.5% Q4: There is interest in foreign phones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry, but what do you think about them appearing in the Japanese market? (Sample size=1,000)
Welcome all of them 16.4% Depending on the handset I welcome them 42.6% Don’t really welcome them 6.8% Don’t welcome them at all 3.0% Can’t say either way 31.2%
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: blackberry,iphone,panasonic,sharp,upgrade
Subscribe to feed
Send to mobile
Subscribe to 世論 What Japan Thinks newsletter
feitclub said,
September 1, 2008 @ 23:08
I got a brand-new Mitsubishi-made keitai last summer when I arrived and it works well, but I’m already eying the new models with a fair amount of envy. Recently I’ve really increased my phone usage as far as blogging/Twitter is concerned, so I’m hoping my next phone will feature a whole keyboard. Typing in English on Japanese phones is a chore because they do not include any of the shortcut/guessing technology US phones have.
Ken Y-N said,
September 1, 2008 @ 23:19
I don’t bother with English! My older Panasonic has ordinary English input method, but the wife’s newer Panasonic went a step backwords! It’s the kind with the lower data entry box, but when you want to type a double letter and press the right key, it accepts the first half of the word as input and you’re back at the start of the box instead. An irritatingly high amount of cursor-jumping, making her phone even more painful than mine!
bill b. said,
September 2, 2008 @ 10:33
Toshiba phones are great for texting in English. Once you get used it, their predictive text-enty feature rivals that of phones from back home.
tragic - DesignersTalk said,
September 2, 2008 @ 12:28
[…] out the iphone isn’t all that popular here in Japan: Apple iPhone less interesting than Panasonic, Sharp » 世論 What Japan Thinks __________________ This space for rent. Don’t click this link. Dudes […]
Jerome said,
September 2, 2008 @ 15:42
I found the headline pretty negative considering the fact.
Ranking third after only 2 months in a market historically dominated by domestic makers is quite good in my opinion.
Of course “Apple iPhone less interesting than Panasonic, Sharp” is not false,
but neither this one : “Apple iPhone more interesting than Sony, Toshiba”.
According to the one you choose, people who only read the headlines will state that the iPhone is popular or not in Japan (as the trackback above me).
I feel that something like “Apple iPhone ranks third on interest survey” would have sound more objective.
Ken Y-N said,
September 2, 2008 @ 22:11
bill b., that’s useful to know that the Toshiba phones have decent predictive English input. I’ll have to have a look next time I’m shopping.
Jerome, yes, it was a deliberately negative and subjective headline! But, isn’t that what I as a blogger have to do to get more people to read the story?
Jerome said,
September 2, 2008 @ 22:51
Ken, sure ! Apple bashing is good for making traffic !
I tried however to make my comment a little bit more constructive so people don’t say I’m just one more fanboy
Looking at the numbers again, I really think these are good for Apple. Consider for a second that each Japanese maker have dozens of models on the market, compared to only one for Apple. Japanese people have probably already owned at least two or three handsets from different makers and thus might have a clear opinion on which one they prefer.
As you said iPhone owners are just a fraction of the market and lot of people have never see a real one already. Yet more than 8% are interested in it, I really think that’s quite good. (even if “interest” is quite a vague term…)
Ken Y-N said,
September 2, 2008 @ 22:58
Jerome, thanks for the reply. Yes, it is pretty good coming from nothing, although having blanket television coverage for about a month around the release date helps.
To be honest, though, I think the iPhone has peaked in Japan as it doesn’t do a lot of the things Japanese people take for granted, and as more people hear about the missing features (emoji, QR codes, etc) the more interest will drop. Let’s see if the next monthly survey reports again on Apple.
Earth said,
September 3, 2008 @ 07:41
Look at how Apple has 8.7% interest but only 0.03% owned. The main ones like Sharp have lower interest than owned!
3GWeek - Asia’s Mobile News | Japan: iPhone 3G is not that sexy! said,
September 18, 2008 @ 07:37
[…] a survey conducted by goo Research reveals that iPhone 3G is not that sexy for Japanese because there are lot of other phones that […]
Japan: iPhone 3G is not that sexy! | PlugPlig said,
October 23, 2008 @ 17:57
[…] a survey conducted by goo Research reveals that iPhone 3G is not that sexy for Japanese because there are lot of other phones that […]