世論 What Japan Thinks

The results of the 54th regular survey by goo Research into mobile phone upgrade needs was recently reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of January 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone-owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 1.3% in their teens, 13.3% in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, 30.1% in their forties, and 24.6% aged fifty or older.

The abbreviations in the headline refer to the top five entries for Q3. With smartphones due to overtake feature phones very soon in terms of new sales in Japan (I hear the figure of currently two in five new phones being smartphones), and with the local makers now bringing out their smartphones with four of these top five features (I’m not aware of a water-resistant smartphone), the iPhone’s dominance in the Japanese market is sure to come to an end.

In lieu of a graph, let’s have a dog in school uniform instead:

Which reminds me, Lee at Tokyo Times found a much better pair of dogs in school uniforms.

Research results

Q1: Which mobile carrier do you use? If more than one, choose the main one. (Sample size=1,000)

NTT docomo	48.3%
au by KDDI	28.0%
SoftBank	20.9%
Willcom	2.8%
E-Mobile	0.0%

Q2: Select which of the following are important when upgrading your mobile phone. (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)

Handset price	69.0%
Design	57.9%
Functionality	37.0%
Size	29.4%
Body style (clamshell, slider, etc)	27.3%
Mobile phone carrier	26.6%
Weight	26.5%
Talk time cost	25.4%
Camera spec, functionality	22.8%
Display	22.7%
Additional functionality (television, GPS, etc)	22.2%
Battery life	21.0%
Data packet cost	20.4%
Mobile phone maker, brand	19.7%
Supported services	15.7%
How easy to connect	14.6%
Text input functionality	12.9%
Data transmission speed	12.6%
Internal memory size	10.4%
Voice quality	10.3%
Other	2.0%
Nothing in particular	1.7%

Q3: Select which of the services from the list below whose presence or absense is important when upgrading your mobile phone. (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)

One Seg terrestrial digital television reception	30.7%
Memory card	28.1%
Water resistant, waterproof	26.8%
Infrared transmission	24.9%
FeliCa (Osaifu Keitai electronic cash)	18.9%
Music playback	17.1%
GPS	16.3%
Full browser	10.2%
Bluetooth	10.0%
Wireless LAN	8.8%
FM radio reception	5.9%
Document viewer (Excel, etc)	4.6%
AM radio reception	3.2%
Digital radio reception	2.6%
Electronic compass	2.1%
Skinnable	1.7%
Analogue television reception	1.0%
Other	3.0%
Nothing in particular	28.3%

Q4: Select which of the services from the list below whose presence or absense is important when upgrading your mobile phone. (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)

Flat-rate data plan (pake-hodai)	46.4%
Navigation	14.8%
Deco-mail	12.1%
International roaming	9.8%
Full-quality ring tunes	8.5%
Ring tones	8.4%
Flash	7.9%
Video delivery	7.4%
Push to Talk	0.9%
Other	0.6%
Nothing in particular	40.4%