世論 What Japan Thinks

Here’s a very interesting survey from Point On Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into reading news on mobile phones.

Demographics

On the 10th of Novermber 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a mobile pone-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

I’ll add a caveat that as well as the survey being for mobile phone users only, these mobile-only surveys tend to favour heavy users rather than just the average mobile phone user, so there is a degree of bias here.

I can get headlines for free from my mobile phone, but I never find it worth the bother – on the way back home from work I can just peer at other people’s evening papers, and anyway I usually get home in time to see 10 or 15 minutes of news, so I can quite happily live without the latest headlines on my mobile.
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I’ve defintely noticed since the iPhone 3GS was released in Japan the number of handsets I’m seeing has definitely increased, but what are people doing with them? This recent survey from Point On Research, as reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at this in a survey entitled iPhone apps.

Demographics

On the 27th of October 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a mobile phone based survey. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties. Note that the below is just the highlights of the survey; the full set of results will be available at a price.

I’m in the US right now, and the iPhone is quite stunningly popular! I suspect the visibility of the device is affected by people fiddling with their iPhone more than people fiddle with other more boring devices, or people are more addicted, or are just showing off. In addition, a French guy took me along to Fry’s yesterday and he picked up an iPod Touch for about 100 euro less than he’d have to pay at home.
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I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets email newsletters from various places that I just can’t unsubscribe from, and in Japan there seems to be no law or industry best practice to have a simple unsubscribe link even from reputable businesses, so this recent survey from iShare into unwanted email newsletters revealed how the average person copes with this situation.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 28th of September 2009 513 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.8% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, and 36.3% in their forties.

My wife gets a shed-load of spam every day, especially from Rakuten (Japan’s largest online mall), who will sell on your address to their shops at the drop of a hat, so even if you unclick all the mail delivery boxes, you come back a day or two later and find that new boxes have appeared. I suspect in the small print when you buy something from one of their shops is some text saying that you agree to get email from other businesses from the same genre. She has mostly given up on unsubscribing, so she now has hundreds of addresses blocked in her mail client!
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Call me old-fashioned or square, but I am glad that in Japan even minor body modifications such as simple ear studs are not that popular, as this recent survey from iShare into piercing confirms.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 10th of September 2009 516 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.2% of the sample were male, 33.9% in their twenties, 30.0% in their thirties, and 36.0% in their forties.

I’d like to know if the difference in Q2 of 24% to 8% is due to gender-based rules or due to the men and women in this survey working in different industries. Looking at my own employer’s rules, I cannot find a direct ban on piercings, but there are notes about gaudy earrings (and loud hair, etc) which suggest that anything more than a simple stud for guys would earn one a visit to the personel department.

I do occasionally see people with lip rings (yuk!), but I usually suspect they are just fake clip-ons, not real.
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Gender might have been a more correct word to use in the headline, but I’m sure it wouldn’t have got so many click-throughs! This recent survey from iShare looked at the interesting, but not as saucy as the title might suggest, topic of desired gender of bosses in Japan.

Demographics

Between the 10th and 15th of September 2009 555 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.1% of the sample were male, 35.1% in their twenties, 30.8% in their thirties, and 34.1% in their forties.

I’ve had my share of bosses of both sexes in Japan, and I can say that all bar one of the male bosses were awful. I don’t know whether it is the company training practices, promotion scheme, or just that most of them worked for or under others at some point and the uselessness rubbed off. The common faults in all their management styles are an inability to delegate meaningfully, presumption of their own correctness (reinforced by Japan’s sempai-kohai relationship) to the extent of ignoring differing opinions, and the ability to drone on at length on random subjects at the drop of a hat. Oh, and just in case my current male boss is reading, yes, that includes you too.
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This is a subject I’ve looked at a number of times, but I always find the results interesting. The subject is mobile phone coupons, counducted by Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 15th of September 2009 exactly 800 members of the Point On Research monitor group completed a mobile internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

The only mobile coupons I use are for Mister Donut, although recently they’ve been pretty poor, 20% off a second doughnut or the like. And they’ve also ended their half-price ice coffee promotion.
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There’s no shortage of free papers around town, even though it wasn’t until 2002 that the first one appeared in Japan. These free sheets were the focus of this recent survey from iBridge Research Plus, as reported by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 14th of September 2009 300 members of the iBridge Research Plus monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.7% of the sample were female, 12.0% in their twenties, 30.3% in their thirties, 29.3% in their forties, 22.0% in their fifties, and 6.3% in their sixties.

I’m not sure exactly what that 2002 date for the launch of free papers means, as when I came to Japan in 1998 there was already three or four free weekly or monthly freesheets and magazines targetted at the foreign market; indeed I met my wife through a free paper advertisement.
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With this summer’s poor weather causing a thin harvest of vegetables thus an increase in prices, iShare decided to look at a current hot topic, oddly-shaped vegetables.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of August 2009 538 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private online questionnaire. 56.3% of the sample were male, 29.7% in their twenties, 31.4% in their thirties, and 38.8% in their forties.

I’ve not seen any oddly-shaped veggies in the supermarket myself, although I’ve bought such ones at a farmers market or other direct from the farm outlet.

As for price increases, potatoes and onions are definitely up about 25%, cucumbers are in a bit of short supply, so it’s difficult to say, and lettuce is very expensive, as most seem to be about the same price as last year but half the size. I’ve not really noticed any difference for other veggies, however.
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Despite the iPod and iPhone being a reasonable success in Japan, Apple are not seeing the benefit in terms of Mac sales, according to this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into home computers, with a look in particular at the upcoming Windows 7.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of July 2009 1,086 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

I use Windows Vista only at home, which does work well for everything I want to do, so I don’t see any reason why I should bother upgrading to Windows 7, especially given that since I run the Ultimate version as it’s the only one to support multiple languages, the upgrade price will be pretty high, I suspect.
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Here’s one of these surveys that helps explain something that does annoy me in Japan, namely how change is handed out. The survey was conducted by iShare.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of July 2009 590 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private online questionnaire. 55.8% of the sample were male, 36.3% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, and 33.6% in their forties.

Two things annoy me about getting change here; I almost always get notes first, so I end up fumbling with my wallet trying to get them in while holding up the queue and the cashier hovering over me with the coins. Second, when getting a mix of 1,000 yen and 5,000 yen notes, they always put the 5,000 yen note on top, so I either have to put the notes in back to front or spend more time fumbling to put the 5,000 yen note to the back. Do any of my readers get bothered by this, or is it just me?

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