世論 What Japan Thinks

With KDDI running the au design project that is producing a number of interesting phones, this look by Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into cellphone design found that simple, if not just downright boring, was best.

Demographics

Over the 9th and 10th of April 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% 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.

I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t include a suitable category for the iPhone to fall under in Q1. The straight type implies more the standard candybar rather than the… how would you describe the iPhone’s form factor?

I’m a clamshell adult elegant black or two-tone sort of guy myself.
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With just about every phone available in Japan and built within the last two year able to support Flash (the iPhone being one notable exception), this survey from Point On Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looking at mobile phone wallpaper reveals a significant percentage of people using Flash even as their mobile’s idle screen background.

Demographics

On the 16th of March 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone-using members of the Point On Research monitor group completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and feamle, 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. For this survey 47.4% of the respondents were with au by KDDI, 42.0% with docomo, 10.5% with SoftBank, and 0.1% with other carriers. This split seems odd to me – 45:35:20 is the usual ratio, and their own monitor demographics page illustrates a 39.7:43.0:33.4 ratio, so I don’t know what is going on here!

Regarding the headline, overall it is just 6.3% of the total sample prepared to lay out cash for just a background, but looking at it as a quarter of a quarter sounds somehow larger! However, I would add a note of caution that many may not be directly paying, but instead may have a monthly subscription to a themed site (like a Sanrio or Disney site full of static and dynamic backgrounds, email templates and emoji icons, etc) with an all-you-can-eat or points-based model.

My phone just has a boring old static picture.
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Here’s an interesting survey on portable audio players from iShare showing how sold-state music has muscled out MD players, the leader from just three and a half years ago.

Demographics

Between the 25th of February and the 2nd of March 2009 417 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 40.0% in their twenties, 26.4% in their thirties, and 33.6% in their forties.

I don’t own any portable audio players – well, actually my mobile phone can play music, but I’ve never used the feature. My wife has an MD player lying around that she never uses, but I have a cunning plan for it that doesn’t involve music… Right at the moment I could use a portable player as there is a rather drunk or mentally disturbed guy muttering away to himself as I’m trying to concentrate on translating, but I digress. On to the survey!
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I’m not sure if the phrasing in the story title is familiar to many, but in the UK where Harlequin novels are called Mills and Boon, the popular generic term for such style of romantic novels is the bodice-ripper. Anyway, that title serves to give away the results of a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone novels.

Demographics

On the 2nd of March 2008 300 female members of the Research Plus monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 25.0% of the sample were in their twenties, 49.0% in their thirties, and 26.0% in their forties.

I’ve never read a mobile phone novel or even a novel on a mobile phone for that matter, although when I last translated a similar survey I mentioned that there are many readers for reading books on most types of mobiles, but like many other things I talk about I’ve never quite had time to try it out!
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In these tough economic times, one way of saving money is to collect coupons, so this recent survey from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at this very topic of mobile phone coupons.

Demographics

Over the 1st and 2nd of March 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone-using members of the Point On monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 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 50.0% in their fifties.

Just at the weekend, and just in time for this survey, I got two mobile coupons, one for 100 yen off a doughnut and coffee set at Mister Donuts, and the other for a free men’s bath salts from the rather feminine chain of pricey bric-a-brac Afternoon Tea.

I’m not aware of any of the coupon sites mentioned in the last question, but that might be a good topic for Nihon Hacks or Frugalista Japan to investigate.
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Here’s an interesting survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looking at computer usage of mobile phone users, the fourth in the series of regular surveys.

Demographics

Between the 16th and 19th of February 2008 1,067 members of the goo Research mobile monitor group completed a mobile phone internet-based questionnaire. 57.5% of the sample were female, 3.9% in their teens, 29.2% in their twenties, 40.2% in their thirties, 21.4% in their forties, and 5.2% aged fifty or older. Note that one way that they recruit their mobile monitors is by getting them to enter their mobile phone email address when they apply to be a PC monitor, so bear that in mind while reading the results.

My mobile web use is limited to the occassional dictionary lookup and downloading of animated email icons, for reasons of it being too expensive, too slow, and too restrictive.

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With many mobile phones both here in Japan and abroad sprouting touch panels and full keyboards, this recent survey by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone input facilities revealed a few interesting statistics about them.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 17th of February 2009 1,074 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 15.5% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 12.4% in their sixties.

The survey also investigated voice input, but it is just the simple pattern matching for speed dial, I believe, a feature standard on many phones. I believe the next big feature for Japanese phones will be the dictation of email messages, but I also believe it won’t work very well and will not find any significant mainstream use.

If I had the money, I’d really love to upgrade to the Sharp S004, featuring all three of the features asked about here, a full keyboard, a touch panel, and an accelerometer.
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Honestly, it’s not just because I’ve recently launched a Japanese emoticon and smiley dictionary that I’m picking up a number of surveys like this one from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone email use, with the focus for this report on textual and graphical emoticons.

Demographics

On the 15th of February 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone users from the Point On Research monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were 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.

Even though I have produced the above-mentioned emoticon dictionary, I don’t actually use text emoticons in my mobile email! Most of the time it is the built-in emoji graphical icons. I’d use more decomail (larger-sized, on the whole, animated gifs) but my phone is one of the first models to support them, so the user interface is pretty awkward to say the least.

I don’t get enough mobile emails to use any other pattern than immediate reply, but my blog email is another matter altogether…
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Maybe I’ve just been in Japan too long, but I’ve recently noticed train phone manners going downhill, with talking on the phone being an obvious hate, but also people who leave their keypress beep on irritate me a lot. These feelings seemed to be shared by most people, according to this recent survey conducted by Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile use onboard trains.

Demographics

On the 2nd of February 2009 exactly 1,000 mobile phone using members of the Point On monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% aged fifty or older.

When I go abroad this sort of behaviour doesn’t really bother me, perhaps because I am accepting that it is the social norm for the country I am visiting, or perhaps it is because I’m often trying to sleep on my daily commute.

The picture accompanying this post is a Tokyo manners poster, one of a series of posters they have produced, with today’s statistic added for a more accurate representation of the situation!
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Here’s an interesting survey from iShare that answers the questions that many westerners ask when they see the average Japanese mobile phone email littered with kaomoji smilies and decomail animations, simply “Why?”

Demographics

Over the 28th and 29th of January 2009 668 users of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.1% of the sample were male, 12.6% in their twenties, 46.1% in their thirties, 33.4% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 1.2% in their teens or sixty or older.

Just in case you missed last night’s post, you can find about 8,000 (and growing) kaomoji facemarks at evoticon. Other technical terms included in this post are emoji, simple icons, and decomail, HTML templated mail, including DIY text animation.
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