世論 What Japan Thinks

I get the distinct impression in the USA and Europe that Bluetooth is a must-have feature for mobile phones, but in Japan a recent survey said only 5% wanted Bluetooth on their next phone, versus 22% after infra-red. This survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into Bluetooth confirms this lack of interest in Bluetooth.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of February 2008 300 members of the Cross Marketing monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The group was split 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.

Only a few selected models of mobile phones come with Bluetooth these days, and I’ve never seen anyone in Japan using these earpiece Bluetooth accessories that I saw quite a few times when I was in the USA. I may have once seen someone with Bluetooth headphones, but that’s about it. It might be an interesting survey to discover why exactly people don’t use them.

Q1SQ2 shows how low usage of Bluetooth really is. Although 22.7% of people said they owned a Bluetooth device, these 68 people owned 95 Bluetooth-capable devices between them, making about 1.4 devices per person. From these 95 devices, 79 were master devices, leaving just 16 accessory-class devices, and just four of them had potential to be used with mobile phones.

Oh, and just in case you are in the 43.7% according to this survey, Bluetooth is a short-range low-power wireless standard most often found in (non-Japanese!) mobile phones.
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Following on from the recent survey on dirty Japanese DVDs (which for some reason got great click-through rates from Japan Probe and News on Japan), this time let’s look at a survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into the matter of faults with devices with internal hard disk drives. Note that despite the headline, this survey covers any problem with devices with hard disks, not just the disk drives themselves.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 8th of February 2008 1,092 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% of the sample was male, 17.8% in their teens, 19.4% in their twenties, 15.8% in their thirties, 16.9% in their forties, 18.3% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

I’ve had a hard disk in my PC die once, but luckily I managed to salvage about 90% of the critical information, and since then I’ve been slightly better at performing backups, although with a mere CD-R, backing up a one gigabyte SD card’s-worth of photos is a bit of a pain.
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With a story last week about cigarette smoke clogging up the laser on the Wii, this is a timely survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into faulty DVD playback devices.

Demographics

Between the 31st of January and 1st of February 2008 1,095 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.9% were male, 17.5% in their teens, 19.4% in their twenties, 15.9% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, 18.4% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

As I only own less than half a dozen DVDs and haven’t watched any of them for months if not years, I can’t say I’ve ever had a problem with DVDs.

Oh, and if you’re coming here via a Google search for the keywords in the article title, sorry to disappoint you!
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Admittedly the headline sounds awfully like a one-sided contest, especially considering that the MacBook Air is being heavily advertised on Japanese television, as this recent survey reported by japan.internet.com and conducted by Cross Marketing Inc on mobile devices demonstrates.

Demographics

Over the 30th and 31st of January 2008 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, and 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,

As a cross-reference, just after the launch of Apple’s iPod touch over 70% were aware of it, and just after the USA launch of Apple’s iPhone nearly 85% were aware of it.

The MacBook Air is eye-catchingly slim, of course, but some of the reviews I have seen suggest there has had to be some comprimises made to the performance to get everything into the case. On the other hand, the Eee PC just does what it says on the tin without too much drama, and it might even be the sort of device I would buy myself.
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Unfortunately I couldn’t find any suitably silly survey for Sunday, so you’ll have to make do with this one, where japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into the topic of broken digital cameras.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 21st of January 2008 1,092 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample was male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Picture of a broken Panasonic DMC-FX30 by Jeff Youngstrom

Even though I haven’t bought any new bits for my self-built home PC since I got married, I can still recite the key specs: 800 (or is it 900?) MHz Athlon, 80 GB hard disk, and 640 MB memory, although I can understand why there was so many don’t knows in this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into home computer specs.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 13th of January 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.3% of the sample was male (this figure is significantly lower than the usual 80% to 85% male percentage in other JR Tokai Express Research surveys of salaried workers), 21.2% in their twenties, 38.2% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, 5.8% in their fifties, and 9.7% in their sixties.

Note that in Q1 most people take part in these surveys through their home computers, so that figure cannot be extrapolated to cover the wider population. I am one of the 26.4% who share their home PC, but if I ever manage to make a decent amount of cash online, my first purchase will be a nice portable for myself, then perhaps a dockable for wifey.
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I’d be lost without car navigation, as it were, and the devices they put in as standard in all Toyota rent-a-cars are pretty darned good, although I occassionally get one with a slightly out of date map that misses out a new bypass or two. To find out what the average Japanese person thinks, MyVoice performed its third survey on car navigation usage.

Demographics

Over the first five days of December 2007 14,643 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

When I hired a car last year in Austria it came with a Hertz NeverLost device, but I couldn’t for the life of me get it to work, and having only a German instruction manual didn’t help in the slightest. It seemed to be little more than a GPS to me, with no route planning functionality whatsoever, and if I’d actually paid to rent the device I’d have asked for my money back after having been spoilt by the Japanese devices. I managed eventually to find my way thanks to a Google Maps printout, though.
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Top of my list of electrical items to buy for the house is a HDR, or Hard Disk Recorder, the name commonly used for PVRs, Personal Video Recorders, or TiVo-like devices. This survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Cross Marketing or television program recording looks at how these HDRs are used in Japan.

Demographics

Over the 9th and 10th of January 2008 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50.0% male, with 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.

I’ve heard people in Japan talk of how their lives have changed with the advent of the HDR; the biggest plus is for people who have children, as kids can’t wait, but now the television can. When their kid needs attention, the live broadcast can be paused, the child attended to, then the program resumed. Secondly, lots of children’s programs can be saved to disk, and their favourite programs called up at the touch of the button, and scenes they enjoy can be repeated over and over again.
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< ?PHP
include "/home/whatjapa/public_html/libchart/libchart.php";

$chart = new PieChart(400, 200);

$chart->setTitle(“Might you like to buy Apple’s iPhone?”);
$chart->addPoint(new Point(“Yes”, 51.7));
$chart->addPoint(new Point(“No”, 19.3));
$chart->addPoint(new Point(“Don’t know”, 29.0));

$chart->render(“/home/whatjapa/public_html/image08/buy-iphone-jan.png”);
?>

Two days, two mentions of Apple’s iPhone! This time, however, rather than trying to shoehorn it into an existing survey, japan.internet.com reported on a survey by conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into Apple’s iPhone.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 11th of January 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in either the public or private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 80.0% of the sample was male, 10.9% in their twenties, 36.4% in their thirties, 36.1% in their forties, 13.9% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

This is also well-timed with regards a report on Forbes about the iPhone (thanks Gen!) which takes the rather safe line that the latest NTT DoCoMo 905i series does everything and more already, and that the price tag is rather prohibitive. Looking at Q1SQ2 below, it seems that almost no-one is willing to pay the price it was initially offered at in the USA, but well over a quarter of the potential customers are willing to pay around the current market value. This also ignores the fact that the previously-mentioned 905i series is selling, and selling well, at over 50,000 yen on a standard pricing plan, and of course the up-front cost is just a fraction of the total cost of ownership. To compare, in the USA the cheapest unlimited data plan costs $59.99 with 450 free minutes, 5,000 evening and weekend minutes, and 45 cents per minute after that, whereas in Japan the cheapest 905i plan is 2,000 yen (excluding tax) for 25 free minutes (300 free minutes would be 8,000 yen!), 400 yen for answering machine and call waiting service, 200 yen for iMode walled-garden functionality, 5,700 yen pake-houdai full unlimited data packet plan for full browser, and then 40 yen per minute afterwards. This makes a USA iPhone cost around $1,839 for two years including $399 for the handset, or about 200,000 yen, versus a minimum 249,200 yen for a 905i series phone including the 50,000 yen handset cost, not forgetting that a Japanese tend to upgrade more frequently than once every two years, making a basic 905i about 25% more expensive than an iPhone. If one compares the package with a similar amount of minutes, the price becomes 393,200 yen, almost double the price! To be generous to NTT DoCoMo, after a year you may become eligible for a 35% discount, rising to 50% after 10 years, so a worst-case scenario is closer to 333,140 yen, only 66% more expensive, and a best-case of 221,600 yen, still 10% more expensive than an iPhone. Similar costs apply to the other main carriers, SoftBank and au.

If you want to read more on the iPhone in Japan, please view my article on why Apple’s iPhone will succeed in Japan, or catch up on all past articles on the iPhone.
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With the recent news that KDDI was tops for net new customers in 2007, it is instructive to look at a recent report on japan.internet.com regarding the 35th regular mobile phone upgrade needs survey conducted by goo Research once a month, every month since April 2004.

Demographics

Over the 20th and 21st of December 2007 exactly 1,000 members of the goo Research monitor group who carried a mobile phone (the reported text says just internet users, but everyone in the survey carried a mobile phone, so the sample must have been pre-screened for mobile phone ownership) completed a private online questionnaire. 50.8% of the sample was male, 1.2% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 37.4% in their thirties, 28.8% in their forties, and 16.8% aged fifty or older.

With the hype for Apple’s iPhone release in Japan beginning to build up, it is interesting to note that from the list of desired features in Q2, the following are not present on the US or Europe models of that device: external memory card, one seg digital terrestrial or analogue television, infra-red, FeliCa (Osaifu Keitai, electronic wallet), water resistance, GPS, FM, AM or digital radio, document viewer, skinning, and an electronic compass. Present are merely music playback, full browser, Bluetooth, and wireless LAN. Of course, one can argue that the questions were biased towards Japanese phones, but Apple will have to face the same issue of customer bias when they try to sell the iPhone in Japan. However, in Q4 people seem to hold the screen display as key, an area where the iPhone is strong.
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