世論 What Japan Thinks

Despite mobile phones reaching pretty much saturation point, according to recent survey into fixed line phones by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com less than one in five see fixed lines disappearing in the future.

Demographics

On the 25th of January 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their twenties, 34.3% in their thirties, 33.7% in their forties, 11.7% in their fifties, and 4.0% in their sixties.

One reason why fixed line phones are not going away, compared to what I imagine trends are in the USA, is that mobile phone deals in Japan contain very, very few free minutes. SoftBank are the most generous, offering basically free calls to all SoftBank phones, and the other two main carriers have free family and friend calls to certain numbers, but otherwise mobile calls are pretty expensive compared to fixed line phones, and calls to mobile numbers also carry a premium.

Research results

Of the total sample, 271 people, or 90.3%, had a fixed line phone. They were asked the following.

Q1: Who is your fixed line phone carrier? (Sample size=271)

NTT	72.0%
ISP’s IP telephone	12.5%
KDDI	8.1%
SoftBank Telecom	3.0%
Other	4.4%

Q2: About how often do you use your fixed line phone? (Sample size=271)

Number of times a day	14.4%
Once a day	11.4%
Number of times a week	23.2%
Once a week	10.3%
Number of times a month	14.4%
Once a month	4.4%
Number of times a year	5.5%
Once a year	0.0%
Almost never	16.2%

Q3: Will fixed line phones be definitely necessary in the future? (Sample size=300)

Yes	46.3%
No	19.7%
Don’t know	34.0%