世論 What Japan Thinks

This recent survey from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at the rather interesting issue of answering mobile phone calls.

Demographics

On the 24th of November 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a private mobile internet-based questionnaire (I think). The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

Note that just about all mobile phones in Japan will display the calling number, and if the caller is registered in the phone book the name will also display, which I guess is a pretty standard mobile feature all over the world! Calls from public phone boxes will display as number unknown, as well as people who dial a prefix to hide their caller ID.

For unknown numbers, there are a few databases of nuisance callers for you to check. The fastest way I find is to type the number straight into Google with no spaces or hyphens, and if a match (in Japanese of course!) comes up from one of these databases you can know it’s an unsolicited call. I’d give you a URL or two, but I don’t have them bookmarked as I always use the search method!
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Looking at the alphabet soup of new models for this autumn and winter from docomo and SoftBank, one could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed, with about 20 new handset each. Seeing how widespread this feeling was was one of the questions asked in the 49th regular upgrade needs survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of November 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample were male, 1.3% in their teens, 14.3% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, 27.7% in their forties, and 23.4% aged fifty or older.

I’m overwhelmed by the number, especially as they all have roughly the same price and feature overload. If there was an entry-level phone with no One Seg television, a low-end camera, and no touch screen, flashing lights and other gimmics, I’m sure it could sell.

I’ve also got no intention to buy this season, partially as I’m waiting to see how well the Japanese manufacturers tackle making Android phones for the domestic market, and partially because I spent my toy budget on a netbook.
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Following on from docomo’s autumn and winter line-up, today we look at SoftBank’s new models, the subject of this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh mobile monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 0.7% in their teens, 19.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Looking at this and the previous docomo survey (I’ll skip the au one if that turns up!) you might be left thinking that that’s an awful lot of new phones! Well, you wouldn’t be the only one, as today another survey was published (I’ll be translating it either tomorrow or Monday) asking that very question.

Looking at the models available, I’m most interested in the one pictured here, the Sharp 942SH KT…
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Docomo have recently announced their new line up for autumn and winter. There are almost no new phones; most of them are just refreshes of existing products with maybe a higher-end camera here and a few extra lighting effects there. One new one is the SC-01B, which seems to be just a Japanese-targetted tweak of Samsung’s Omnia Pro B7330 with a touch panel, but the B code seems to be trying to suggest to the customer that it’s an upgraded BlackBerry Bold. Anyway, these NTT docomo new models were the subject of this survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 15th of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh mobile monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

The Photopanel 02 is a new one on me, but as the name suggests it is a digital photo frame. There was also a 01, but I’ve never seen that anywhere!

Looking at the old and new phones last weekend I feel docomo’s range is getting too confused. Looking at Panasonic, for instance (most of the Japanese manufacturers suffer from this), they have two basic clamshell designs (there’s also a third slider phone), but mix and match features, so you can have a touch-pad keyboard and two-way opening, but a low-end camera. Go for a higher mega-pixel count and you lose two-way opening and the inward camera, but get more emoji and a cartoon character theme. They all have basically the same price so it’s really an exercise in frustration trying to decide which to compromise on.

Oh, and the older models haven’t had any noticable price reduction even though they’ve been superceded.
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The following survey from Macromill was very superficially summarised in the press, focusing on just a single question when a lot more interesting data was available regarding mobile phone use of mothers bringing up children.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of November 2009 500 married mothers from the Macromill monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. All the sample was female, of course, and 25.0% were between 20 and 24, 25.0% between 25 and 29, 25.0% between 30 and 34, and 25.0% between 35 and 39 years old.

Some of the figures are very surprising to me (mainly because I’m not a young mother) such as just over half the youngest age group writing a Mommy blog and over a quarter shopping or bidding in auctions at least once a week, although I did expect the number of emails exchanged to be higher!
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Here’s a very interesting survey from Point On Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into reading news on mobile phones.

Demographics

On the 10th of Novermber 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a mobile pone-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

I’ll add a caveat that as well as the survey being for mobile phone users only, these mobile-only surveys tend to favour heavy users rather than just the average mobile phone user, so there is a degree of bias here.

I can get headlines for free from my mobile phone, but I never find it worth the bother – on the way back home from work I can just peer at other people’s evening papers, and anyway I usually get home in time to see 10 or 15 minutes of news, so I can quite happily live without the latest headlines on my mobile.
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Almost all phones in Japan these days can download applications in one form or another, so this survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at the use of mobile applications.

Demographics

Between the 28th and 31st of October 2009 1,071 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

The original Japanese article headlined the story with “Over half of iPhone users use applications daily”, but there was only 36 owners, or 3.7%, in the sample, so the main focus will be on the standard Japanese Java-based world.

In Q3, don’t ask me what the difference between a simulator and a simulation is!
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Recently, goo Research conducted their second regular keitai novel (mobile phone novel) survey, which was reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 29th of October 2009 1,073 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 21.3% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

Note that here a keitai novel (“keitai” is short for “keitai denwa”, “portable phone”) is a novel written especially for mobile phones, and often written itself on a mobile phone, rather than just the electronic version of a paper novel consumed on a mobile phone. Hopefully those answering the questions here were fully aware of that distinction!

It would be interesting to see what percentage of people had read the same book in both formats, and the number of books in each format.
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I’ve defintely noticed since the iPhone 3GS was released in Japan the number of handsets I’m seeing has definitely increased, but what are people doing with them? This recent survey from Point On Research, as reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at this in a survey entitled iPhone apps.

Demographics

On the 27th of October 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a mobile phone based survey. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties. Note that the below is just the highlights of the survey; the full set of results will be available at a price.

I’m in the US right now, and the iPhone is quite stunningly popular! I suspect the visibility of the device is affected by people fiddling with their iPhone more than people fiddle with other more boring devices, or people are more addicted, or are just showing off. In addition, a French guy took me along to Fry’s yesterday and he picked up an iPod Touch for about 100 euro less than he’d have to pay at home.
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Here’s an interesting look with Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into hands-free mobile phone equipment.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of October 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 2.7% in their teens, 17.3% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

Considering that Bluetooth is not standard on even high-end phones, and given that talking isn’t really that popular in Japan anyway, one rarely sees the earpiece kit on pedestrians (certainly not in the Osaka area, although it might be a bit more popular in Tokyo) so I suspect the devices are just as rare in cars.

The article also notes that the fine for using a mobile phone while driving is 5,000 yen for a bicycle, 6,000 yen for a car or motorbike, and 7,000 yen for a large vehicle. This goes up to 50,000 yen if you cause an accident, etc. The basic fine seems a bit low considering I got done for 15,000 yen for parking for under 10 minutes in a back-street just last month.
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