世論 What Japan Thinks

In this the latest mobile phone upgrade needs survey from goo Research, their 52nd in the series, in the report by japan.internet.com they chose to focus on camera-related issues.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 23rd of June 2010 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.1% of the survey were female, 1.9% in their teens, 13.3% in their twenties, 24.4% in their thirties, 29.2% in their forties, and 21.2% aged fifty or older.

In the latest round of summer model mobile phones, they are a good number now with 13 megapixel cameras, although as most people will tell you, it’s not the raw megapixels but the quality of the sensor that is important. On a mobile with a limited size and often cheap lens, above five or eight megapixels you’ll not see any benefit, and perhaps even a degradation.
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With the iPad having been out in Japan for just about a month, iBridge Research Plus thought it about time to conduct another survey on Apple’s iPad. japan.internet.com chose to focus on the business applicability of the device in their report.

Demographics

On the 21st of June 2010 300 employed members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 72.3% of the sample were male, 14.7% in their twenties, 33.7% in their thirties, 29.7% in their forties, 19.0% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.

Shortly after it came out I read an article about a doctor in Japan using one in the operating theatre. At least he put it into a bag, but I thought it was a highly irresponsible thing to do, as the wi-fi could have interfered with the critical devices, for instance. For general hospital use, it needs a lot of work to be either germ-proof or washable – Panasonic already make a robust but boring tablet for medical use, but I’d be much more comfortable seeing a medical professional using that instead of an iPad!

I think the significant roles for the iPad in business are perhaps limited to photography-related work and to life insurance and other financial salespeople, especially of the home visiting type. There’s probably also a niche for travel agents as a terminal for customers to view virtual brochures and the like.
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The fifth regular survey into consumer games machines by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com found that in the last year just one in six had increased their games playing.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of June 2010 1,073 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.6% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.3% aged fifty or older.

I wonder how many of the 43 others in Q1 owned iPod Touches or iPads? They aren’t really games machines per se, but they do get advertised as such, so it would be interesting to see them broken out. Furthermore, if they were counted, I wonder how many of these people are playing more games on their Apples? Let’s hope the sixth time round they have a look.
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Given the combination of the small size of the average Japanese home, all-too-common paper-thin walls, DIY not being very popular, and of course many providers throwing in free wireless-ready routers and USB wi-fi dongles, it’s perhaps more a suprise that wired LANs are relatively popular in this survey from iBridge Research Plus, reported on by japan.internet.com, into home LANs.

Demographics

On the 7th of June 2010 300 members of the iBridge online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were male, 13.7% in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, 31.3% in their forties, 17.7% in their fifties, and 6.7% in their sixties.

My flat came with built-in wired LAN, and I worry a bit about the security aspect so I haven’t bothered to get any sort of wi-fi add-on kit as it’s not that much bother to plug the LAN cable into the wall.
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With LED lights providing a better performance and eliminating the slight warming-up problem in some fluorescent lights, this survey from iShare looked at issues surrounding these LED light bulbs.

Demographics

Between the 28th of April and the 7th or May 2010 535 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.7% of the sample were male, 30.8% in their twenties, 32.1% in their thirties, and 37.0% in their forties.

Many of the bulbs in my flat are already flourescent, in particular the heavy usage ones are already upgraded, so given the current electricity and bulb costs, replacement takes over four years to pay off. Even the most-used incandescent bulb still has a one-year pay-off cycle – hmm, now I think about it, I should replace that one!
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Macromill Research recently conducted a detailed survey into the opinions of recent iPad purchasers, and found a mostly positive set of reactions.

Demographics

On the 14th and 15th of June 2010 300 iPad users from the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 88.7% of the sample were male, 4.7% in their teens, 25.7% in their twenties, 36.0% in their thirties, 19.7% in their forties, and 14.0% aged fifty or older. 51.3% were married, 55.7% were regular company employees, 12.3% students, and all other occupation types were under 7%. A couple of other significant demographics are in tables D1 and D2 below.

The iPad was released on May 28th in Japan, so most people would have had their iPad for less than three weeks. It would be interesting to see the survey results from the same questions in three months time.

It’s curious that in Q7 that a majority are dissatified with the battery life, whereas a search of Google reports that most people are getting more than the advertised 10 hours out of it. Is it just because it is new and people are doing battery-heavy tasks like playing games, downloading stuff and watching movies, or have people got Nintendo DS Lite-like expectations?
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A recent survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into recording television programs found the use of video tapes outnumbering Blu-ray players.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 23rd of May 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fities, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I watch more TV in real-time than recorded – weekdays is usually real-time, weekends is catching up with what I’ve missed.
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An interesting survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into Apple’s iPad found that not just awareness but also desire was high for Apple’s new couch surfing device.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 5th of June 2010 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

I have been at a conference in Hungary over the last week, and one of the attendees had brought along an iPad as his main device, although as far as I could gather from the demonstration he gave a few of us it was just for surfing and light emailing during the duller presentations. I didn’t see any others in evidence during my travels, even though I half-expected to see one or two on the flight from Japan. I’ll not be trading up from my netbook, as a real keyboard is needed for these translations.
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I haven’t looked at Bluetooth for a while, but still, according to this survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into Bluetooth, awareness is quite low; despite Japanese mobiles being advanced in many other features, Bluetooth is still a rarity.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 31st of May 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

My netbook comes with a Bluetooth LED and had a Bluetooth driver installed, but it doesn’t actually have any Bluetooth hardware…
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This survey into electronic book readers by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com found that the iPad seemed an attractive choice to many electronic book readers.

Demographics

On the 24th of May 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.7% of the sample were male, 15.3% in their twenties, 30.0% in their thirties, 28.0% in their forties, 19.7% in their fifties, and 7.0% in their sixties.

There must have been a corresponding question to Q1SQ2 for Amazon’s Kindle, as although it wasn’t reported the text implied that many fewer people were interested in reading on a specialised device.

Despite good reviews of Sony’s e-readers, they don’t seem to be on sale in Japan for some reason and their Japanese web site stopped updating at the end of 2008, although if I were to hazard a guess it would be due to the difficulty in making a deal with the rather old-fashioned mindsets that seem to present in Japanese publishing houses.
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