世論 What Japan Thinks

Since most Japanese mobile phones these days support HTML-styled email with embedded graphics and font selection, it is not surprising that as with computer email, mobile phone newsletter publishers are also now delivering their wares in a more flashy form. To find out the extent of this, japan.internet.com reported on the relevant part of goo Research’s 12th regular mobile phone users’ computer use survey.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 10th of December 2009 1,060 mobile phone-using members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 55.6% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 27.3% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, 18.1% in their forties, and 6.3% aged fifty or older.

Decomail (sometimes shortened to just decome) is short for decoration mail, which means at its simplest HTML-based email, but usually implies embedded graphics.

I once got a picture-laden newsletter from the masters of spam agressive marketing, Rakuten, but I soon cancelled as I realised I was paying about 20 yen in packet charges just to look at the email! I still get about three newsletters to my mobile, but they are all just plain text.

Research results

Q1: Do you currently read email newsletters, on either mobile phone or computer? (Sample size=1,060)

Yes (to SQ1)	83.4%
No	16.6%

Q1SQ1: Which do you read more newsletters on, mobile phone or computer? (Sample size=884)

Mobile phone only	3.5%
More on mobile phone	13.9%
About equal	12.8%
More on computer	60.2%
Only on computer (to end of survey)	9.6%

Note that those only reading newsletters on PC skip the following question.

Q1SQ2: For mobile phone newsletters, about how much is decomail-based? (Sample size=799)

Only decomail	0.1%
Lot of decomail	25.7%
Few decomail	48.2%
No decomail	26.0%