世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1][part 2][part 3][part 4]

Macromill Research recently published the results of a massive yet fascinating study into smartphones, looking at both smartphone users and those wanting to buy. This will be published in four parts.

Demographics

Over the 17th and 18th of February 2011 412 smartphone owning and 206 non-smartphone owning but thinking of buying members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The 412 smartphone users were split into 290 male and 122 female, 73 in their twenties, 169 in their thirties, 111 in their forties, and 59 aged fifty or older. Furthermore, 209 owned an iPhone, 159 Android-based phones, and the remaining 44 had other OSes or didn’t know. Of the 206 non-smartphone users, 113 were male and 93 female, but their ages were not listed.

I think the most interesting results are from the dissatisfied iPhone users in Q9B. Battery life is of course the top complaint of all smartphone users, but next is the reception. This is not the infamous Grip of Death (well, that might be an aspect), but rather that SoftBank have the worst reception area of the top three providers. No Flash support comes next, not surprisingly, then the two Japan-specific complaints of a lack of infrared and electronic cash support. I can understand the electronic cash issue, but what are people wanting to do with infrared, or is it just that it is missing from the tick list of standard features?

Research results

Q6: What features, services do you use on your smartphone? (Sample size=412, multiple free answer, top thirty)

Rank		Percentage
1	Email	90.0%
2	Browsing computer-oriented web sites	89.6%
3	Voice calls	74.0%
4	Taking photos, movies	73.5%
5	Maps, GPS, navigation	66.5%
6	Games	60.7%
7	Watching videos	58.0%
8	Music player	53.6%
9	Calculator	52.4%
10=	Accessing other email services	49.5%
10=	Calendar, schedule management	49.5%
12	Alarm	48.3%
13	Memo	48.1%
14	Twitter, other microblog viewing, writing	35.2%
15	Blog viewing, commenting, writing	34.0%
16=	SNS viewing, commenting, writing	31.8%
16=	Dictionary	31.8%
18	Photo, movie editing	28.9%
19	Bar code reader	24.0%
20	Reading electronic books	21.1%
21	Word, Excel viewing, editing	20.1%
22=	One seg digital television	17.0%
22=	Voice recorder	17.0%
24	Voice search	14.8%
25	Pedometer, health management	12.4%
26	Infrared	11.4%
27	Osaifu Keitai electronic cash	8.5%
28	Business card scanner	7.8%
29	Television viewing	6.3%
30	OCR	5.8%

Q7: Since buying your smartphone, in what kinds of situations has your internet use increased? (Sample size=412, multiple answer)

	All	Male N=290	Female N=122
Lazing around the house	55.3%	50.0%	68.0%
In the train	54.9%	53.8%	57.4%
Waiting for the bus, train	49.5%	47.9%	53.3%
Wating for people	47.3%	44.5%	54.1%
In bed	44.2%	38.6%	57.4%
While walking	29.4%	29.3%	29.5%
While watching television	27.2%	24.1%	34.4%
At work	24.0%	28.6%	13.1%
In cars	23.5%	21.4%	28.7%
On waking	21.1%	22.8%	17.2%
While eating	12.1%	12.1%	12.3%
While doing the housework	9.7%	3.8%	23.8%
Other	1.7%	1.7%	1.6%

Q8A: What aspects of your current smartphone are you satisfied with? (Sample size=412, multiple free answer, top ten)

Rank		Percentage
1	Design	50.0%
2	Screen size	45.6%
3	Wi-Fi support	41.0%
4	Useability	40.8%
5	Breadth of apps	40.0%
6	Handset shape, size	39.6%
7=	Touch panel responsiveness	3.8%
7=	Brand, maker	31.8%
9	Operating system	21.8%
10	Could continue with the same email address	21.6%

Q8B: What aspects of your current smartphone are you satisfied with? (Sample size=209, iPhone owners, multiple free answer, top ten)

Rank		Percentage
1	Design	54.5%
2	Breadth of apps	49.8%
3	Useability	46.9%
4	Wi-Fi support	45.9%
5	Screen size	42.6%
6=	Touch panel responsiveness	38.8%
6=	Brand, maker	38.8%
8	Handset shape, size	36.4%
9	Memory size	25.4%
10	Operating system	19.6%

Q8C: What aspects of your current smartphone are you satisfied with? (Sample size=159, Android owners, multiple free answer, top ten)

Rank		Percentage
1	Screen size	52.2%
2	Handset shape, size	47.2%
3	Design	46.5%
4	Wi-Fi support	37.7%
5	Useability	35.8%
6	Could continue with the same email address	34.0%
7	Breadth of apps	32.1%
8=	Touch panel responsiveness	25.8%
8=	Brand, maker	25.8%
10	Operating system	23.9%

Q8D: What aspects of your current smartphone are you satisfied with? (Sample size=73, 20-29 years old, multiple free answer, top ten)

Rank		Percentage
1	Design	67.1%
2	Screen size	63.0%
3	Handset shape, size	52.1%
4	Breadth of apps	46.6%
5	Touch panel responsiveness	41.1%
6	Brand, maker	37.0%
7=	Useability	35.6%
7=	Wi-Fi support	35.6%
9	Memory size	34.2%
10	Could continue with the same email address	31.5%

Q8E: What aspects of your current smartphone are you satisfied with? (Sample size=169, 30-39 years old, multiple free answer, top ten)

Rank		Percentage
1	Design	55.0%
2	Handset shape, size	42.0%
3	Screen size	40.8%
4	Useability	40.2%
5	Breadth of apps	39.1%
6	Wi-Fi support	37.9%
7	Touch panel responsiveness	33.7%
8	Brand, maker	32.0%
9	Operating system	22.5%
10	Handset price	20.1%

Q8F: What aspects of your current smartphone are you satisfied with? (Sample size=111, 40-49 years old, multiple free answer, top ten)

Rank		Percentage
1	Wi-Fi support	45.9%
2	Useability	45.0%
3	Screen size	43.2%
4	Breadth of apps	38.7%
5	Design	37.8%
6	Handset shape, size	32.4%
7	Brand, maker	30.6%
8	Touch panel responsiveness	25.2%
9	Operating system	20.7%
10	Could continue with the same email address	18.0%

Q8G: What aspects of your current smartphone are you satisfied with? (Sample size=59, 50 years old or older, multiple free answer, top ten)

Rank		Percentage
1	Wi-Fi support	47.5%
2	Screen size	42.4%
3	Useability	40.7%
4=	Design	37.3%
4=	Breadth of apps	37.3%
6=	Handset shape, size	30.5%
6=	Memory size	30.5%
8=	Touch panel responsiveness	27.1%
8=	Brand, maker	27.1%
10	Could continue with the same email address	22.0%

Q9A: What aspects of your current smartphone are you dissatisfied with? (Sample size=412, multiple free answer, top five)

Rank		Percentage
1	Poor battery life	61.7%
2	Not water-resistant	28.4%
3	Poor reception area, signal strength	26.9%
4	No Osaifu Keitai electronic cash support	25.5%
5	No Flash support	23.5%

Q9B: What aspects of your current smartphone are you dissatisfied with? (Sample size=209, iPhone owners, multiple free answer, top five)

Rank		Percentage
1	Poor battery life	62.2%
2	Poor reception area, signal strength	40.2%
3	No Flash support	33.5%
4	No infrared support	32.5%
5	No Osaifu Keitai electronic cash support	30.1%

Q9C: What aspects of your current smartphone are you dissatisfied with? (Sample size=159, Android owners, multiple free answer, top five)

Rank		Percentage
1	Poor battery life	67.9%
2	Not water-resistant	33.3%
3	Unresponsive touch panel	29.6%
4	Data transmission charges are high	27.7%
5=	Poor functionality	20.8%
5=	Handset is expensive	20.8%

Q10A: How satisfied are you with your current smartphone? (Sample size=412, smartphone users)

	All	iPhone users N=209	Android users N=159	Male N=290	Female N=122
Satisfied	14.3%	19.1%	8.8%	13.4%	16.4%
Somewhat satisfied	57.0%	61.2%	55.3%	56.6%	58.2%
Can’t say either way	18.0%	12.0%	25.2%	20.0%	13.1%
Somewhat dissatisfied	7.8%	6.2%	8.2%	6.9%	9.8%
Dissatisfied	2.9%	1.4%	2.5%	3.1%	2.5%

Q10B: How satisfied are you with your current ordinary mobile phone? (Sample size=206, non-smartphone users)

Satisfied	8.3%
Somewhat satisfied	62.6%
Can’t say either way	18.4%
Somewhat dissatisfied	8.7%
Dissatisfied	1.9%

[part 1][part 2][part 3][part 4]