世論 What Japan Thinks

Another mobile phone technology nearing the 50% barrier is GPS, Global Positioning System, according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looking into GPS. Two days ago we saw that contactless IC chip-based electronic money had passed the 50% mark, and another article I read today about One Seg digital terrestrial television for mobile devices had also passed this milestone. (The original Japanese source is here)

Demographics

Between the 16th to 23rd of September 2008 1,056 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.8% of the sample were male (7 or so points higher than usual, but no explanation is given why), 12.9% were in their teens, 20.7% in their twenties, 20.2% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, and 24.2% aged fifty or older.

I’ve never used a GPS in a portable device, but I couldn’t drive without my car navi system. I rented a Prius last month but whatever default settings they had were a bit wonky, wanting me to detour just a little too far just so I could stick to motorways. I did manage to confuse it for a bit by missing a motorway entrance and instead cruised along underneath where I should have been, but it did recover effortlessly, and I made all my destinations with the minimum of drama.

The latest revision of the Prius navigation and entertainment centre also automatically rips CDs to hard disk and labels them using the Gracenote database, but that’s another story entirely!
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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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With most phones now crammed full with the latest features, most manufacturers are putting more effort into the design aspect of their phones as the differentiating feature. To see how consumers perceive the look of their mobiles, MyVoice conducted a survey into mobile phone design.

Demographics

Over the first five days of September 2008 15,502 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens,l 15% in their twenties, 36% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 19% in their fifties.

The first phone that I felt was stunning in design terms was the Sharp Aquos with the rotating screen that could change from portrait for standard email use to landscape for One Seg television watching. That phone first came out on SoftBank, but it’s now offered by all three major carriers. To my overseas readers – have Sharp licenced that technology to any foreign manufacturers? I seem to remember hearing that Panasonic’s push-button opening for clamshells has been licenced overseas, but Panasonic seem to keep that feature to themselves as a differentiating factor for the domestic market.

In the graph, I kept Sony-Ericsson separate as some of their hardware is worldwide, some domestic only.
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The vast majority of Japanese phones use the 3G network, but is that enough for the average user? This survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc (actually, japan.internet.com forgot to mention who conducted the survey, but looking at the sample size, age demographics and the high concentration of respondents from the Tokai area, it has to be from JR Tokai!) tried to find out with this survey on mobile phone speed.

Demographics

On the 9th of September 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.5% of the sample were male, 3.0% in their teens, 11.8% in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, 23.0% in thier forties, 15.4% in their fifties, 9.1% in their sixties, and 6.0% aged seventy or older.

I’m satisfied with my current mobile transmission speed, although the most I ever as from it is sending a 20 or 30 kilobyte photo attachment. Speed of operation, however, that’s a different matter altogether and something I do have strong opinions about!
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Last time I looked at the iPhone I got a comment on me being a bit negative in my outlook, so this time in a survey by BlogCh looking at smartphones I promise to be more positive!

Demographics

Between the 27th and 29th of August 2008 801 members of the free email service CLUB BBQ who also had a mobile phone for private use completed an online survey. 54.2% of the sample were male, 17.5% in their twenties, 48.3% in their thirties, 29.0% in their forties, and 5.2% in their teens or aged fifty or older. Note that the CLUB BBQ demographics is more technologically aware than the average internet user.

I thought my next mobile phone might be just another bog-standard one, but I just recently read a bit about the HTC Touch (or the HT1100 as DoCoMo label it) and it gets a lot of good reviews and comes in at the same price as… but it doesn’t do emoji. Curses! However, the Willcom 03, one of the subjects of this review, can at least display them.

Indeed, looking at the Willcom 03 feature set it looks like it is what the iPhone should have been for the Japan market. Oops, I’m being negative again, but for the sake of research I stopped at a mobile phone shop and picked up the Willcom 03 leaflet. It’s very feminine, telling the story of a week in the life of a young businesswoman in suitable pastel colours, and for just 6,700 yen all-in for unlimited data and zero money down (I think), it’s a winner.

Incidentally, I’ve not seen an iPhone in the wild yet, and I’ve seen just one or two iPod touches
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Perhaps I over-estimate the average Japanese consumer’s desire for value before reputation, but I found the results of this survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into computers at home quite surprising.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of September 2008 1,001 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 3.0% of the sample were male, 12.7% in their teens, 22.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Sony have TV tuners in most of their line-up, as well as integrated features for recording television shows to disk, so their desktops, usually equipped with wide-screens, can easily double as televisions in cramped Japanese homes.

In the notebook field, Panasonic come a very poor 10th with not even 3% of the home market, despite an earlier survey showing them to be the most popular business notebook. The price of them at retail is frightening, quite frankly, and they come with very few of the bells and whistles that are loaded (overloaded?) onto the other brands. Wondering out loud with absolutely no information to back this up, but given that they have recently released Viera-branded (their TV technology) mobile phones, I wonder if they’ll build a Viera notebook (or even desktop) to try to capture more of the home market?

Finally, despite the sub-notebook market being big in the West at least, and despite many shops selling an Asus Eee PC for just 100 yen if you take out a two-year subscription to the 3G mobile internet service from E-Mobile, Asus and Acer with their Aspire One barely register in sales or purchase intentions.
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With other surveys showing that car manufacturers are among the most green companies, let’s look at one effort they make to show their green credentials, hybrid cars, in a survey conducted by MyVoice.

Demographics

Over the first five days of August 2008 14,782 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% were in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% in their fifties.

The Prius is a lovely car which I always try to rent when I need a car in Japan. I always use Toyota Rent-A-Car. If you pay using a (Japanese only?) credit card you get a 5% discount. The cars are fully-equipped with a CD player, good satellite navigation system (Japanese only!) and ETC automatic toll payment machine, if you have a card for that. I’m picking up one the weekend after next, and it works out at about 8,000 yen per day.

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We’re now two months into the iPhone era in Japan, so this 39th regular mobile upgrade needs survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com took a closer look at some of the issues surrounding this device.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of August 2008 1,000 mobile phone-using members of the goo Research online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.2% of the sample were female, 2.0% were in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 40.8% in their thirties, 24.6% in their forties, and 14.3% aged fifty or older.

Note that for Q1 and Q2, for people with multiple providers or multiple phones, they answered for their main one only.

Apple on 0.3% for this survey is a difficult number to interpret. If you take the aproximate figure of 100 million mobile phones in Japan, this represents about 300,000 users, but figures suggest there has been about 100,000 iPhones sold in Japan. The age group of respondents is biased toward the iPhone demographic, and almost all of them own home computers, so it would suggest a bias, but how much is difficult to predict.

Q4 is a difficult one to interpret. Just over half of those surveyed do not welcome some of the phones; in English being not welcome has negative connotations, but it may be more correct to say that people are just not bothered.
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Most of the big chains of convenience stores have two kiosk-like machines in many of their stores; an ATM machine, and a general-purpose terminal for conducting various transactions. This recent survey from goo Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at how people use convenience stores, with the report focusing on the use of these service kiosks.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 25th of August 2008 1,079 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% of the sample were male, 16.2% were in their teens, 17.5% in their twenties, 22.4% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, and 26.8% aged fifty or older.

Note that many Japanese net shopping sites, from the tiny stores at Rakuten all the way up to Amazon, allow payment at convenience stores. My wife has a Ticket Pia card, and even when booking through their own official ticket site she can get the option to pick up the tickets from a Family Mart store for no fee as an alternative to about 600 yen fee for registered post. When she picks up the tickets she can opt to pay by cash, but by inserting the card she gets priority seat choice, as they do not assign the seat when booking online (or by the phone), but instead when you pay. If you fail to turn up at the machine within three days you lose your booking. It does seem like a horribly complex and roundabout way of buying things and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some sort of agreement between Ticket Pia and Family Mart whereby Family Mart pay Ticket Pia for sending a customer through their doors.
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With Apple’s iPhone doing – well, nobody knows, as Apple will not allow SoftBank to release any data, but it’s certainly winning the PR and brand image battle. To see if any of the charm has rubbed off onto the iPod touch, JR Tokai Express Research Inc conducted a survey, the results being reported on by japan.internet.com.

Research results

On the 19th of August 2008 332 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the public or private sectors completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 85.8% of the sample were male, 6.6% in their twenties, 33.1% in their thirties, 45.5% in their forties, 12.0% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

Talking of the iPhone (I’ve mentioned often enough how little I am interested in portable music) I saw an article in the Australian newspaper … on the Japan iPhone market that was rather inaccurate, so I’ll take this chance to correct it. What they did get right, however, is that the iPhone will shake up the Japan market, but I don’t think it will be quite the earthquake that I first thought. It quotes someone as saying:

Gerhard Fasol, of telecoms consultancy Eurotechnology Japan, estimates they shifted between 75,000 and 125,000 units in July. At that rate, he thinks 2008 sales could total between 645,000 and 1 million.

No, it will not sell one million this year. SoftBank have already dropped the price of the plan to allow a discount for people who use less than 5 Mb of data per month, but that represents barely one page a day through the Safari web browser. WiFi is not a viable option as public access points are rare in Japan, and if one does stick to that, why not just buy an iPod touch and keep one’s proper phone for everything else? No support for emoji for instance, not just input but also display, will turn off just about every casual user.

This potential for continuously upgrading applications, without also needing to replace handsets, is the genuine innovation Apple brings to the Japanese mobile market and the most direct challenge to the existing system..

Almost all newer mobile phones have options to update their firmware and applications, although this option is rarely taken. There is maybe an argument that the iPhone’s process is more user-friendly, but when one thinks of a phone one expects it to work straight out of the factory and not have to have repeated upgrades. Of course, it’s rather difficult to download a One Seg receiver or an electronic cash chip, yet Japanese phones can easily download extra packages to support more types of electronic money.

Now, back to the iPod touch.
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