世論 What Japan Thinks

With the electronic book market beginning to heat up in Japan, this recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into electronic books and electronic book sellers found that the recent announcements from Sharp and Sony were fresh in many people’s minds.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 19th of December 2010 1,079 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ve never heard of the Kobo, although it seems to be Canadian rather than the seemingly Japanese name it has.

Furthermore, I of course knew about Amazon selling e-books, but I’d never heard of the rest.

Everything I hear about the Kindle sounds good, and if I did slightly more travelling (or slightly less blogging!) I’d buy one. If the Japanese ones have managed to get a lot of publishers on board, and if the price of individual volumes is cheaper than the paper versions, I’d be inclined to get one for the wife, just so we could tidy up a lot of the clutter of books!

Research results

Q1: Do you know what electronic books are? (Sample size=1,079)

Know about them (to SQs)	63.6%
Just heard the term	34.8%
Don’t know anything about them	1.7%

Q1SQ1: Which of the following electronic book readers do you know about? (Sample size=686, multiple answer)

Galapagos (Sharp)	53.6%
Kindle (Amazon)	53.1%
Sony Reader (Sony)	48.1%
Nook (Barnes and Noble)	4.5%
Kobo	2.2%
Other	2.2%
Don’t know any	24.8%

Q1SQ2: Which of the following electronic book sellers do you know about? (Sample size=686, multiple answer)

amazon.com	46.5%
Tsutaya Galapagos	30.5%
eBookJapan	17.9%
Shogakkan eBooks	14.7%
Reader Store	12.4%
honto	5.2%
Other	0.3%
Don’t know any	40.5%