世論 What Japan Thinks

This was quite a surprising result for me, to see how newcomers into the digital camera market, Panasonic and Sony, were becoming forces to be reckoned with, according to the results of this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 7th of April 2009 1,085 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 15.6% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.6% aged sixty or older.

There’s a lot of good photography in Japan blogs appearing now – two of my favourites are Tokyo Times and i, cjw.

Hmm, a post about cameras without a photograph…

Research results

First, the sample were asked what kinds of camera they had. 819 people, or 75.5%, had a compact digital camera, 117 people, or 10.8% had an SLR, and 776 people, or 71.5% had a mobile phone with a digital camera. The numbers with no cameras at all was not reported.

Q1: Who is/are the makers of the compact digital cameras that you have? (Sample size=819, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Canon	186	22.7%
Casio	128	15.6%
Olympus	125	15.3%
Sony	110	13.4%
Panasonic	107	13.1%
Fujifilm	100	12.2%
Nikon	56	6.8%
Pentax	27	3.3%
Ricoh	20	2.4%
Epson	14	1.7%
Mitsubishi	8	1.0%
Leica	3	0.4%
Kenko	1	0.1%
Polaroid	1	0.1%
Rollei	1	0.1%
Other	32	3.9%
Don’t know the maker	14	1.7%

Q2: Who is/are the makers of the digital SLR cameras that you have? (Sample size=117, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Canon	52	44.4%
Nikon	18	15.4%
Sony	16	13.7%
Olympus	9	7.7%
Panasonic	9	7.7%
Pentax	7	6.0%
Fujifilm	6	5.1%
Sigma	2	1.7%
Mamiya	0	0.0%
Leica	0	0.0%
Other	4	3.4%

I’m not sure why there isn’t a “don’t know the maker” answer for Q2!

Next, all 1,085 respondents were asked what kind of camera they would most like to buy, and 337 people, or 31.1% said a compact digital camera, but 410 people, or 37.8% said an SLR. The full sample was then asked what maker’s SLR they would most likely buy if they were buying; the top two answers were 332 people, or 30.6% said Canon, and 165 people or 15.2% Nikon. Next, a similar question for compact digital cameras was asked.

Q3: If you were buying a compact digital camera in the future, which maker would you choose? (Sample size=1,085)

	Votes	Percentage
Canon	251	23.1%
Panasonic	104	9.6%
Sony	96	8.8%
Casio	82	7.6%
Olympus	69	6.4%
Nikon	47	4.3%
Fujifilm	37	3.4%
Ricoh	24	2.2%
Epson	13	1.2%
Pentax	12	1.1%
Leica	3	0.3%
Kenko	2	0.2%
Polaroid	1	0.1%
Mitsubishi	1	0.1%
Rollei	0	0.0%
Other	6	0.6%
Can’t, won’t choose by maker	337	31.1%