世論 What Japan Thinks

Cross Marketing recently conducted a survey into iPhone5 satisfaction levels, and interestingly choosing to contrast satisfaction levels between users of the two carriers who offer the phone, au and SoftBank.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 21st of July 2013 1,000 iPhone5-owning members of the Cross Marketing monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 500 of the users had au by KDDI as their carrier, and 500 had SoftBank. The ages of the sample ranged from 18 to 59 years old, but no further demographic information was provided.

SoftBank have been putting a lot of effort into stressing how their network has improved – indeed, I have previously presented statistics showing how good they are – and the message seems to be getting through with satisfaction ratings being higher in almost every category as seen below.

Here SoftBank explain the concept of “Connecting”, assisted by Shinji Kagawa of Manchester United and Bob Sapp, an ex-American Football player:

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This short survey from the curiously-named Seed Planning looked at robot vacuum cleaners.

Demographics

At some point between February and July this year 400 purchasers of robot vacuum cleaners were selected and completed a survey. No further information was presented.

One reason that this survey is short is that it basically a teaser for a recently-released full market report into the robot cleaner business, but at 157,500 yen per copy, forgive me if I give it a miss this time around.

I perhaps want a robot cleaner, but I don’t think it would suit our house; both the sofa and main bed are just too close to the floor to squeeze a robot in.
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Mobile Marketing Data Laboratory recently continued their look at feature phone users, a follow-up to an earlier report on the first half of that survey that I translated here.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of June 2013 992 members of the MMD monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All of them currently used a feature phone, and 331 were with docomo, 330 with au, and 331 with SoftBank as their mobile carrier. Their ages were between 15 and 69.

Note that this survey is a continuation of the previously-mentioned survey, and starts with the 204 people who answered in Q1 that they had plans to buy a smartphone sometime in the future.
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A recent survey from Mobile Marketing Data Laboratory looked at feature phone users.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of June 2013 992 members of the MMD monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All of them currently used a feature phone, and 331 were with docomo, 330 with au, and 331 with SoftBank as their mobile carrier. Their ages were between 15 and 69.

From other surveys, feature phones make up just over 50% of the existing phones in circulation, although new smartphone sales outpace existing phone sales.

My wife still has a feature phone, and she’s in no rush to upgrade; she likes the idea of a smartphone for web browsing, but is reluctant to leave behind the physical keypad for email.
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japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey by goo Research into smartphone cases.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of June 2013 1,078 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.1% of the sample were male, 13.6% in their teens, 15.7% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 17.2% in their forties, 14.9% in their fifties and 17.1% aged sixty or older.

Note that a previous survey had found that a vast majority own smartphone cases.

I don’t have one for mine, and it’s only ever had a couple of minor spills out of my pocket onto carpeted floors.
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Mobile Marketing Data Laboratory recently conducted a survey with a lot of useful data points, looking at tablet device issues.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of June 2013 568 members of the MMD research panel who were also users of both tablets and smartphones completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The ages were between 20 and 59 years old, but no further information was provided.

There’s a lot of great data here that I’ve been hoping to get my hands on for a while. Over 20% of Android tablet users being iPhone owners is not a surprise to me; given that the iPhone is the biggest-selling smartphone in Japan it is statistically quite normal (I think!) that there is such a split. However, I would like to know why iPhone users chose an Android tablet, or did Android tablet users choose the iPhone? At a guess, I would say that price would be the deciding factor, but I wonder how many of those choosing an Android did have a significant investment in iTunes and app purchases? Perhaps next time we can get answers to these questions.
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Despite Samsung being one of the best-selling smartphones in Japan, as this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phone and smartphone upgrades (the 8th time this survey has been conducted) revealed.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 5th of June 2013 1,054 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.6% of the sample were male, 0.4% in their teens, 7.5% in their twenties, 24.4% in their thirties, 33.9% in their forties, and 33.9% aged fifty or older. Although not stated, looking at the demographics it suggests a mobile phone-based questionnaire; Q1′s “none” is perhaps people with tablets only?

I’d have to go with being not interested in any in Q1SQ2. I went to a mobile shop a couple of days ago, and nothing feels right in my hand – either too big, too chunky, too slippery, too textured!
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Rakuten Research recently published a short look at docomo users’ views on docomo’s summer 2013 models; for your reference, here is the official docomo press release.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 18th of May 2013 400 existing docomo mobile phone or smartphone customers who were investigating changing phones some time this year completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 200 people in the survey used Android smartphones, and 200 used feature phones.

I think I’ll give this summer’s models a miss. Almost everything is 5-inch screens, which is far too large for my pockets!
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at web site viewing, the seventh time this regular survey has been performed, and found that tablets were surprisingly (to me at least) less popular than feature phones when it came to selecting a main surfing device.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 11th of April 2013 1,090 mobile phone- (including smartphone-) using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.6% of the sample were female, 3.1% in their teens, 23.1% in their twenties, 37.1% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, and 11.2% aged fifty or older.

I’m beginning to seriously consider using a tablet as my main tool for home, replacing my netbook, although I do need to find a decent text editor with macros in order to produce all the tables I use. If anyone has any good recommendations, I’m all ears. And no, Emacs for Android is most certainly not a good recommendation!

In Q1SQ1, I’d like to know more about why about half the smartphone users choose it as their primary surfing device, but only one in five tablet users do so. I suspect it is something to do with the smartphone being more portable thus usable on the train when commuting, and perhaps a lot of tablets are wifi only, so have less connectivity.
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goo Research recently conducted their seventh regular survey into electronic books, which was reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 25th and 26th of March 2013 1,089 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample were male, 13.4% in their teens, 15.9% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 17.4% in their forties, 19.4% in their fifties, and 12.4% aged sixty or older. Furthermore, the sixth regular survey was conducted between the 10th and 13th of December 2012 and had 1,076 participants with roughly similar demographics.

This post is quite timely as Kobo just announced a retina display-like spec on their new e-ink reader.
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