世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phones but focusing on camera features in this report, found that cameras were now ubiquitous on mobile phones.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 18th of February 2011 1,074 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Currently the makers are fighting a megapixel war in Japan, in both traditional feature phones and smartphones. For feature phones, Panasonic have their 13 megapixel Lumix phone, LG their ugly as sin jobby-brown 12 megapixel effort, and Sony-Ericsson the stupidly over-specced 16 megapixels; for smartphones, Toshiba’s Android-based 12 megapixel camera.
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This survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com was the 24th regular monthly survey into mobile phone users’ computer use.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 13th of February 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. 54.1% of the sample were male, 3.3% in their teens, 22.7% in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, and 8.6% aged fifty or older. Note that all monitor members have to be computer users to sign up, so by implication all 1,000 users should also have computers.

I’m translating this mail right now thanks to a mobile phone email from Mister Donut, which contained a 20% off coupon for a very nice crunchy chocolate Pon De Ring and enough coffee to get me to the end of this translation.

I am on about two other mobile phone mailing lists – one for my mobile phone shop (once a month and I delete it immediately) and one from my mobile phone provider’s credit card company, which I don’t think I’m allowed to unsubscribe from!
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According to Japan’s biggest comparison shopping site, kakaku.com, battery life is the one point where most smartphones fail badly. To try to quantify this, goo Research conducted a survey, reported on by japan.internet.com, into smartphone batteries.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 7th of February 2011 1,081 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I was completely dissatisfied with my old mobile phone’s battery, but after recently trading up to another standard feature phone I’m more than impressed by the one week recharge cycle, involving much email, less than a minute of calls, and a little bit of surfing here and there.
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This latest set of results from the eighth regular survey into mobile devices looked in particular at smartphones, but also exanded on a wish I had, breaking out numbers for the iPod touch and iPad.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 27th of January 2011 1,069 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 15.9% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 28.4% aged fifty or older.

Note that in Q1SQ1 GALAPAGOS is Sharp’s brand name for their Android-based handsets (and electronic book readers), although some of their Android devices for au are branded with the IS series mark.
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The results of the 54th regular survey by goo Research into mobile phone upgrade needs was recently reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 19th of January 2011 exactly 1,000 mobile phone-owning members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 1.3% in their teens, 13.3% in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, 30.1% in their forties, and 24.6% aged fifty or older.

The abbreviations in the headline refer to the top five entries for Q3. With smartphones due to overtake feature phones very soon in terms of new sales in Japan (I hear the figure of currently two in five new phones being smartphones), and with the local makers now bringing out their smartphones with four of these top five features (I’m not aware of a water-resistant smartphone), the iPhone’s dominance in the Japanese market is sure to come to an end.

In lieu of a graph, let’s have a dog in school uniform instead:

Which reminds me, Lee at Tokyo Times found a much better pair of dogs in school uniforms.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of the 66th regular mobile advertising survey from goo Research.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 7th of January 2011 1,096 mobile phone-using members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.0% of the sample were female, 2.8% in their teens, 24.7% in their twenties, 37.7% in their thirties, 26.6% in their forties, and 8.3% aged fifty or older.

I’ve never bought anything through my mobile phone, and even though my wife does a lot of PC-based shopping, she has never to my knowledge used her mobile. The strange thing is that mobile shopping should be more secure, or at least a mobile phone is easier to lock down, yet as far as I am aware most mobiles such as Japanese feature phones have little or no protection against many kinds of attacks. However, there are various moves afoot to correct that, such as some stuff I am involved in.
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With Skype already available on many smartphone, and indeed with Japan’s second-largest carrier, au, now preloading it onto many phones, this survey from goo Research looks at awareness of Skype and other associated issues.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 17th of November 2010 1,070 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.8% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

In Q2, I’m not sure if people were fully aware that Skype to Skype may be free (excluding packet charges), but Skype to non-Skype mobile phones requires payment. Furthermore, in Japan public wireless is rather thin on the ground, so even if the majority of mobile phones in Japan have it installed, calls are still going to have to be paid for more often than not.
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This recent survey from iShare looking at tablet computers produced some surprisingly high figures for user numbers.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 19th of October 2010 746 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.2% of the sample were male, 24.8% in their twenties, 34.0% in their thirties, and 41.2% in their forties.

I do find it a bit difficult to believe that according to Q2 almost one in five already have a tablet computer. I don’t know if people are wrongly classifying any touch-operated mobile as a tablet, or if the demographic is completely skewed.

I’ve got no intention of buying a tablet. The main use for my netbook is hacking up blog entries like this one, so I feel that the software keyboard will get in the way of my typing.
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at mobile video, their 65th survey in their regular mobile research series.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 21st of October 2010, 1,036 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a mobile internet-based questionnaire, thus everyone was a mobile user. 57.6% of the sample were female, 3.6% in their teens, 25.8% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 25.6% in their forties, and 9.8% aged fifty or older.

My mobile phone is capable of movie playback, but I don’t believe I’ve ever watched any video, not even playback of video shot with the mobile’s camera.
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iShare recently took a look at smartphones, including a look at what non-users thought smartphones might be like to use.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 21st of September 2010 406 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.2% of the sample were male, 31.8% in their twenties, 30.3% in their thirties, and 37.9% in their forties.

Entertainingly (I’m easily entertained) one of the smartphones mentioned was the Brack Berry.

In Q1, I’m not sure how much the 22.7% of men carrying a smartphone reflects reality versus the kind of demographic that uses CLUB BBQ’s services, as it does seem a little high to me.

Q1SQ5 is a bit difficult to interpret; mail ease of use implies the ability to use emoji and the like, thus women have a worse impression of smartphone email. Good usability implies, I think, the overall user experience, whereas being easy to use implies how well each individual application functions.
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