With the release of the iPhone 4S in Japan, SoftBank are no longer the only mobile company offering Apple’s phone, but now au from KDDI have joined them, and this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phone upgrades will not make pleasant reading for the SoftBank management.
Demographics
Between the 21st and 27th of October 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone (including smartphone) owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.6% of the sample were female, 1.2% in their teens, 11.3% in their twenties, 29.8% in their thirties, 28.0% in their forties, and 29.7% aged fifty or older.
I’m now getting much keener on a smartphone – perhaps the coming January I’ll finally make the leap? Read the rest of this entry »
With recent reports of Sony and rather surprisingly Nintendo too losing money, they undoubtedly have high hopes for their next generation of consoles, but this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into games machines (the first in a new series of regular surveys) does not make good reading.
Demographics
Between the 17th and 19th of October 2011 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.3% aged fifty or older.
I wonder if just as people talk about a post-PC world where smartphones and tablets take the fore, are we also entering a post-console world? Zynga, the makers of FarmVille and other Facebook games are about to float at a valuation of $6 billion, and DeNA, the people who run the almost-exclusively Japanese gaming site Mobage had a turnover of about $1.5 billion (yes, dollars, not yen) last year with a profit ratio of about 50%! However, both these companies offer mainly pretty simple browser-based games using the freemium model – free to play, but with additional items available for a fee. Similarly, the iPhone and Android app stores price games very cheap and support them using either or both in-game advertising or paid-for additional items or levels. Thus, a separate console plus $30 or $40 per game looks not too good a deal. Read the rest of this entry »
This week’s new survey series is into electronic books, conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com as usual.
Demographics
Between the 26th and 28th of September 2011 1,078 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.
If I exclude online manuals, I’ve read exactly one electronic book, on a iPaq PDA. Actually, make that two, as I had the very dubious pleasure of reading this on a PC and had almost succeeded in forgetting about it until now.
As the price of a basic e-ink Kindle has seriously dropped, if it’s offered for a similar price in Japan I could very well pick it up myself. I wouldn’t even consider picking up an e-bookified Android tablet, not without some major subsidies to soften the blow of the loss of functionality. Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 30th of August and the 2nd of September 2011 1,010 computer-using and mobile phone-owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.3% of the sample were male, 16.8% were in their teens, 20.5% in their twenties, 19.6% in their thirties, 21.4% in their forties, and 21.7% in their fifties. Furthermore, 50.7% used standard mobile phones and 49.3% smartphones, 54.8% had laptops as their primary computer at home, 44.9% with desktops, and 0.4% with tablets.
I print out stuff about once a month or so, usually emails; before you condemn me for wasting paper, in my defense they are emails from my mother and I translate them with the in-laws. Perhaps if I had a smartphone, or even a tablet, I could save a sheet of paper or two a year… Read the rest of this entry »
This recent survey by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into tablets produced some very surprising results, showing Windows and Android to be closer to iOS (iPad OS) than I would have expected.
Demographics
Between the 30th of August and the 2nd of September 2011 1,087 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.
The figures from Europe and the US suggest that it is only the iPad that sells, with at least 80% of the market, so are things really that different in Japan? Furthermore, where are the 8 Windows XP tablets coming from? The figures here seem just a bit too unusual to be reliable. Read the rest of this entry »
iShare recently reported on a survey conducted into the characteristics of global versus galapagos smartphone users. Here galapagos refers to the Galapagos Syndrome, how Japanese mobile phones have evolved to address Japanese market needs, yet are totally unsuited to the global market. Galapagos smartphones are the usually Android-based phones loaded with local must-haves like infra-red, one seg digital television, and Osaifu Keitai, contactless IC Chip-based payments.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 22nd of August 2011 736 smartphone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 65.1% of the sample were male, 11.3% in their twenties, 36.7% in their thirties, 37.4% in their forties, and 14.7% in their fifties.
It was interesting to see that people with global smartphones were more likely to use Twitter and Facebook; it would have been useful to select a couple of representative Japan-born equivalents (not sure what would be Twitter, but mixi is Facebook) to see if galapagos owners tend to remain in isolation.
Note that most of the questions below have separate columns for global smartphone and galapagos smartphone owners. Read the rest of this entry »
iShare recently reported on a survey conducted into the characteristics of global versus galapagos smartphone users. Here galapagos refers to the Galapagos Syndrome, how Japanese mobile phones have evolved to address Japanese market needs, yet are totally unsuited to the global market. Galapagos smartphones are the usually Android-based phones loaded with local must-haves like infra-red, one seg digital television, and Osaifu Keitai, contactless IC Chip-based payments.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 22nd of August 2011 736 smartphone-owning members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 65.1% of the sample were male, 11.3% in their twenties, 36.7% in their thirties, 37.4% in their forties, and 14.7% in their fifties.
I will probably buy a gala-sma versus a glo-sma, to use the abbreviated terms for the two types, although I’m also tempted by a Samsung Galaxy (assuming Apple don’t sue them out of the market…) which seems to be a nice halfway house. If I was being logical, I’d just choose an iPhone, but I have a dislike of the image surrounding Apple users and their network stinks! Read the rest of this entry »
Yet another new goo Research regular survey, this time the first look at home electrical appliances, reported on by japan.internet.com.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 23rd of August 2011 1,071 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.7% in their twenties, 20.8% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, and 28.1% aged fifty or older.
I’ve not bought anything myself recently from the list below, but I was surprised to see that 17% had bought a digital television, despite last year’s eco point discounts making them very affordable. Then again, given how flat-screen TV prices fall every year, perhaps last year’s models are down to the eco point discount levels? Read the rest of this entry »
goo Research started another new regular survey series that is actually just a renaming of an old series, changing title from “mobile phone upgrade needs” to “mobile phone and smartphone upgrading”. This survey was reported on by japan.internet.com and far less interesting than the headline suggests.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 26th of July 2011 1,001 mobile phone-owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were female, 1.7% in their teens, 12.5% in their twenties, 29.7% in their thirties, 28.7% in their forties, 27.5% aged fifty or older.
I want a smartphone whenever I get round to upgrading, and if docomo bring out something like the SoftBank Android device in the video embedded below, I’d buy it:
The popular image of Japan is often as a high-tech paradise, but the results of surveys like this one from goo Research into dedicated word processing devices (reported on by japan.internet.com) makes one scratch one’s head trying to work out why the results were what they were.
Demographics
Between the 19th and 21st of July 2011 1,095 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.
The Pomera is a nifty bit of mechanical engineering (I still have fond memories of my Psion 5!) but hopelessly overpriced, currently sitting at about 20,000 yen for a text-based monochrome screen with just 89 megabytes of memory. There is the argument that a dedicated word processor frees you from distractions, but on PCs, iPhones and Androids you can get hold of minimalist full-screen writing applications that give you a clean space to write. Now that I’m writing about this, I really should grab a copy for myself for drafting blog articles! Read the rest of this entry »
With the release of the iPhone 4S in Japan, SoftBank are no longer the only mobile company offering Apple’s phone, but now au from KDDI have joined them, and this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phone upgrades will not make pleasant reading for the SoftBank management.
With recent reports of Sony and rather surprisingly Nintendo too losing money, they undoubtedly have high hopes for their next generation of consoles, but this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
This week’s new survey series is into 
goo Research recently took a look at the lightly related topics of 
This recent survey by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into 
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goo Research started another new regular survey series that is actually just a renaming of an old series, changing title from “mobile phone upgrade needs” to 
The popular image of Japan is often as a high-tech paradise, but the results of surveys like this one from goo Research into 
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