世論 What Japan Thinks

Life Media’s Research Bank recently conducted a survey into the free chat app LINE. The report linked to on japan.internet.com is just some highlights, but the full report is available on Life Media’s site.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 26th of August 2013 2,000 members of the Research Bank monitor group who were smartphone owners completed a private internet (most likely via smartphone) questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:0 male and female, and 20:20:20:20:20 for the age groups of teens, twenties, thirties, forties and fifty-pluses.

I avoid LINE because I worry about the fact that it slurps your address book up to their servers, and anyway I prefer Google Hangouts, not that I use that much anyway.

Research results

Q1: Do you use LINE? (Sample size=2,000)

	Use it	Downloaded, but not currently using	Not used it	Don’t know it
All	63.3%	4.8%	30.1%	1.9%
Male	57.2%	6.0%	34.6%	2.2%
Male teens	76.5%	4.0%	16.5%	3.0%
Male twenties	61.5%	5.5%	32.5%	0.5%
Male thirties	59.0%	3.0%	36.0%	2.0%
Male forties	47.0%	9.0%	41.5%	2.5%
Male 50+	42.0%	8.5%	46.5%	3.0%
Female	69.3%	3.6%	25.5%	1.6%
Female teens	88.0%	2.5%	9.0%	0.5%
Female twenties	81.5%	3.0%	13.5%	2.0%
Female thirties	72.5%	2.5%	24.0%	1.0%
Female forties	51.5%	5.0%	41.5%	2.0%
Female fifties	53.0%	5.0%	39.5%	2.5%

The 36.7% who didn’t use LINE were asked why, with the most popular reason being they didn’t need it, with about 55% feeling so. Privacy and security concerns came next at around 40% and 35% respectively.

Not suprisingly, text chat was the most feature amongst the users, with 91% using that. Next came 66% using voice calling, 51% using group chat, then 39% visiting the stamp shop, animated icons to liven up chat. Interestingly, just under a quarter of the men but over half the women used this feature.

Regarding the stamp shop, 99% picked up free stamps, 52% free-if-you-friend-a-public-account stamps, and 23% paid-for stamps. Curiously, 31% of men versus just 20% of women paid for stamps. Furthermore, 65% friended public accounts to pick up the free stamps, with 72% of women versus 51% of men taking this route.

When asked what they found inconvenient regarding LINE, 44% chose the poor voice call quality, then 33% that people registered in one’s phonebook can find out information about one.