世論 What Japan Thinks

Perhaps I over-estimate the average Japanese consumer’s desire for value before reputation, but I found the results of this survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into computers at home quite surprising.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of September 2008 1,001 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 3.0% of the sample were male, 12.7% in their teens, 22.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Sony have TV tuners in most of their line-up, as well as integrated features for recording television shows to disk, so their desktops, usually equipped with wide-screens, can easily double as televisions in cramped Japanese homes.

In the notebook field, Panasonic come a very poor 10th with not even 3% of the home market, despite an earlier survey showing them to be the most popular business notebook. The price of them at retail is frightening, quite frankly, and they come with very few of the bells and whistles that are loaded (overloaded?) onto the other brands. Wondering out loud with absolutely no information to back this up, but given that they have recently released Viera-branded (their TV technology) mobile phones, I wonder if they’ll build a Viera notebook (or even desktop) to try to capture more of the home market?

Finally, despite the sub-notebook market being big in the West at least, and despite many shops selling an Asus Eee PC for just 100 yen if you take out a two-year subscription to the 3G mobile internet service from E-Mobile, Asus and Acer with their Aspire One barely register in sales or purchase intentions.

Research results

Q1: What kinds of home computer do you have? (Sample size=1,001)

Desktop only	35.8%
Notebook only	31.4%
Both desktop and notebook	32.1%
Neither	0.8%

Q2: What brands of desktop computer do you have? (Sample size=679, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Fujitsu	154	22.7%
NEC	144	21.2%
Home-built	135	19.9%
Dell	98	14.4%
Sony	98	14.4%
Apple	58	8.5%
Shop own-brand	50	7.4%
Sotec	34	5.0%
Hitachi	23	3.4%
Sharp	21	3.1%
Lenovo (IBM)	18	2.7%
Mouse Computer	18	2.7%
Epson Direct	14	2.1%
eMachines	13	1.9%
Gateway	12	1.8%
HP	11	1.6%
Acer	7	1.0%
eX.computer	1	0.1%
Other	21	3.1%
Don’t know	15	2.2%

Q3: What brands of notebook computer do you have? (Sample size=635, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
NEC	139	21.9%
Toshiba	138	21.7%
Fujitsu	128	20.2%
Sony	94	14.8%
Dell	67	10.6%
Apple	40	6.3%
Sharp	35	5.5%
HP	21	3.3%
Lenovo (IBM)	20	3.1%
Panasonic	17	2.7%
Sotec	15	2.4%
Hitachi	14	2.2%
Acer	7	1.1%
Shop own-brand	6	0.9%
Epson Direct	4	0.6%
Gateway	4	0.6%
Mouse Computer	4	0.6%
Kojinsha	2	0.3%
Asus	1	0.2%
Other	3	0.5%
Don’t know	9	1.4%

Q4: If you were to buy a new computer today, which maker’s would you choose? (Sample size=1,001)

NEC	16.4%
Sony	13.9%
Fujitsu	13.0%
Dell	12.3%
Apple	8.9%
Self-built	8.0%
Toshiba	7.4%
Panasonic	3.1%
HP	2.7%
Shop own-brand	2.2%
Sharp	2.0%
Lenovo (IBM)	1.6%
Epson Direct	1.2%
Mouse Computer	1.2%
Acer	1.0%
Sotec	1.0%
Asus	0.8%
Gateway	0.7%
Kojinsha	0.7%
Hitachi	0.7%
eMachines	0.4%
eX.computer	0.0%
Other	0.9%