世論 What Japan Thinks

The next milestone for electronic cash, the subject of a recent survey from goo Research (the 14th in the regular series) and reported on by japan.internet.com, is two-thirds of the sample having experienced electronic cash, a figure which should be reached by summer, I suspect.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 18th of February 2010 1,086 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 15.9% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 28.3% aged fifty or older.

Note that the survey is looking only at credit card form-factor cash, not IC chips embedded into mobile phones.

I use mine mostly for trains and in-station shops, as it doesn’t come out of my monthly budget. When I first got my card I did use it at a restaurant and book store, but I found out that thrice as many points were on offer if I used the credit card function instead!
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According to the 13th regular electronic cash survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com, both the percentage of card holders and the frequency of usage is increasing, but over the last year the change has been almost within the margin of error for these surveys.

Research results

Between the 30th of November and the 4th of December 2009 1,092 members of the goo Research internet monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 18.7% int heir twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

I’m really getting quite into my Stacia card, with most days seeing me buy a morning snack at a convenience store on the way to work, and at the weekends getting a bottle of water from a vending machine or a station kiosk. It’s easier to budget (or should that be cheat on my allowance?) too, as I don’t end up wasting my cash on lots of fiddly things.
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In the twelveth regular survey into electronic cash, conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com, it is now not just credit card electronic cash that has passed the 50% penetration mark, but also mobile phones have reached that milestone, although the majority of the mobile phone contactless IC chips are lying idle.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 30th of September 2009 1,094 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, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.

I don’t have an electronic cash-capable phone, but I recently bit the bullet and went for a smart card-based season ticket plus electronic cash functionality (Hankyu Stacia) and I must say it’s rather handy, although they have a horrendously unnecessarily complicated dual (could even be triple) parallel point system, although on my very first statement I got no points at all…
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Another regular survey today from goo Research, this time being the 10th electronic cash survey, as reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of June 2009 1,106 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.

The only electronic cash I use is at the work canteen and shop, which isn’t really electronic cash, I would argue; it uses the corporate credit card and gets charged through to my credit card just like a normal transaction - electronic cash to me has a rechargeable sum of cash stored in the card that gets subtracted from as you use. However, I don’t think this survey made such a subtle distinction.

Note that the survey concentrates on chipped credit cards, not mobile phones with the same chips.
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With the majority of Japanese now carrying credit card form factor contactless IC chip-based RFID electronic cash, this recent survey from goo Research reported on by japan.internet.com into electronic cash (their eighth regular survey into the topic) gave some clues as to how people use them.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 27th of March 2009 1,093 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, and 27.6% aged fifty or older.

I get the headline from looking at Q1SQ1 and Q1SQ2 together. The most common use for cards is for public transportation, yet the majority spend under 3,000 yen a month, which suggests just very occasional payment for train usage. However, pre-paid season tickets with electronic money functions are the norm for many commuters, and as 3,000 yen would barely cover even the cheapest season ticket, I can only conclude that people are not counting the cost of their season ticket within their monthly spend. Indeed, I would have liked to have seen the survey differentiate between season tickets and pay-as-you-go usage on public transport.
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This rather a bit too short to be really useful report published on japan.internet.com regarding goo Research’s fourth regular electronic money survey revealed that the Osaifu Keitai feature in most phones go unused.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23rd of October 2008 1,093 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.5% were in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

Note that in Q2 Osaifu Keitai (literally Mobile Wallet) is a trademarked service of docomo, the main promoter of electronic cash, but now most phones from the three big operators come with the FeliCa chip inside, ready to work with most electronic cash providers.
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According to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com a very significant threshold has been crossed, with the majority of Japanese now carrying an electronic cash-capable device, be it either in a credit card form factor or in a mobile phone, according to the third regular electronic cash survey.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 17th of September 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an online private questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 15.7% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

I have for one out of the three legs of my journey to work a ICOCA card, JR West’s version of the Suica railway pass. However, mine is used exclusively as a season ticket only; I haven’t used it as cash for at least two years. Work also allows us to use our RFID-enabled company ID to pay for lunch and at the shop, but that’s not really electronic cash, just a quick credit card payment function.

My wife uses her mobile phone a lot, however, at shops in and around the stations, but that’s technically not electronic cash as she has it linked to her credit card. I don’t know how much this blurring of roles affected the answers to the survey, however, but Q1SQ1 suggests that most people are charging their cards with cash, not having a direct link to a credit card or bank account.
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A significant milestone in the penetration of electronic cash within Japanese society has been reached, with this survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into electronic cash showing that now over half the population (of internet users) carry some form of credit-card form-factor electronic cash. This is the first of a new series of regular surveys by goo Research into electronic cash.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 21st of May 2008 1,091 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample was male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

Note that the questions below were concerned with credit-card sized cards, not mobile phones, so the actual percentage of owners of electronic cash-capable devices would actually be higher, although of course usage is another matter.

I carry an ICOCA rail pass, but I never put any money in it, so I don’t know if that would count or not in this survey! Otherwise, I am quite happy carrying a pocketful of dross around with me all the time.
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I feel RFID is greatly misunderstood, and deliberately misrepresented, by those with axes to grind regarding surveillance, as although the more usual passive type of RFID can technically be read from a few metres distance in ideal condition, it is very sensitive to interference from other metal items making random distance attacks infeasible. Just in case you are really paranoid, as pictured above, Kitty chan can protect you! To find out what the average Japanese does with their IC Chipped cards, JR Tokai Express Research Inc performed a survey on this very subject of IC Cards.

Demographics

Over the 30th and 31st of January 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in either the private or public sector completed an online survey. 78.8% were male, 9.1% in their twenties, 38.5% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 11.8% in their fifties, and 4.2% in their sixties.

I have three chipped credit cards, with one of them doubling as an employee ID card, and an ICOCA train pass so I’m actually slightly below the average.
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With the Japanese market getting frankly rather crowded, with new electronic money services being launched every other week it seems, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research on the matter of Osaifu Keitai, or mobile phone electronic wallets.

Demographics

Between the 31st of May and the 2nd of June 2007 1,093 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample was male, 17.1% in their teens, 19.5% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 11.2% aged sixty or older.

Most new mobile phones are equipped with the FeliCa chip, the RFID electronics from Sony that powers almost all the smart cards in Japan, so it is perhaps not terribly surprising that the awareness of Osaifu Keitai is so high. I’ve actually never owned a phone with the chip, however.
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