This survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into the matter of the iPhone also finds that a surprising to me percentage of people are aware of the details of the launch of the device.
Demographics
Between the 20th and 23th of June 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sex and age breakdown was not reported, although Marsh usually has a 50:50 sex split, and 20% of people in their teens, twenties, thirties and forties, and the remaining 20% split between those in their fifties and those aged sixty or older.
My price predictions, then my reports of a leaked pricing memo have both turned out to be wrong, as on the 23th of June there was an official annoucement of the iPhone price. I still feel that the price is a bit low and as it undercuts the Series X smartphone prices, so I wonder if there is hidden charges or any extras that will bring the price up a bit. In Japan, as there is little public WiFi, the iPhone will put quite a strain on the mobile network, so does SoftBank have the capacity to handle a successful iPhone?
Oh, and here’s a rather low-quality video of the Japanese 12-key input method running in an emulator, using a mouse rather than a finger. I like the pop-ups when you hold down a button.
Between the 11th and 13th of June 2008 433 members of the BlogCh monitor panel who owned mobile phones. 53.1% of the sample were male, 15.5% in their twenties, 49.9% in their thirties, 27.0% in their forties, and 7.6% of other ages.
I use emoji almost exclusively, with one of the main reasons being that I cannot remember the meaning of most of the kaomoji! I also occasionally download, or more often save icons from other people’s mobile phone email. Read the rest of this entry »
Perhaps I should temporarily rename the blog to “携帯 What Japan Thinks of the iPhone” since I’m joining in on the hype at every opportunity! This time it is JR Tokai Express Research Inc, as reported by japan.internet.com, carring out a survey into the iPhone.
Demographics
On the 13th of June 2008 330 mobile phone-using members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in private industry completed a members-only internet-based questionnaire. 71.2% of the sample were male, 11.8% in their twenties, 44.5% in their thirties, 32.4% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.
In Q2, it is curious that 10 people selected SMS as a feature they wanted to use. The users of SMS are few indeed, I think (I can’t remember the last time mentioned it on this blog), as a full email service (including HTML these days) is standard on phones, and there’s no such thing as free SMS in most plans. Perhaps it’s just that a few people are curious to see what exactly the fuss is about?
Although a survey last year showed that around 40% fancied an iPhone, now we have the first survey regarding the concrete release date to see if people are prepared to put their money where their mouths are. This survey was conducted by iShare and BlogCh and the topic was actually mobile phone battery changing, but since the iPhone doesn’t have a user-changeable battery pack, they shoehorned an iPhone question in.
Demographics
Over the 5th and 6th of June 2008 402 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.5% of the sample was male, 12.2% in their twenties, 43.5% in their thirties, 34.8% in their forties, and 9.5% in their teens or over fifty.
If you’ve read my recent estimate of monthly fees for a SoftBank iPhone you may be put off buying it, I suspect. I’ve had some criticism of my figures, but I wanted to choose 300 free minutes as a realistic figure, as that is just 10 minutes a day with free calls only to other SoftBank owners, and the X Series unlimited packet service at 9,800 yen a month is their Smartphone tariff, and although there is a sliding scale of charges, the upper limit of 52,500 packets per month is just 6.7 megabytes of data, or about 224 kilobytes per day, or just one page of many popular web sites, thus surely everyone will use their full allowance. Read the rest of this entry »
This is a genuine survey that is not really quite silly enough for a Sunday, but since it’s a Sunday I can have more fun playing with the results, as can be seen in the graph above, generated from the results of a recent survey conducted by iShare into using mobiles in the loo.
Demographics
Between the 30th of May and the 2nd of June 2008 743 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a members-only internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 25.8% in their twenties, 35.0% in their thirties, and 39.2% in their forties. All of them were pre-screened as users of personal mobile phones.
I occassionally write email in the toilet cubicles at work, and judging from the rattlings of mobile phone straps, so do quite a few of my colleagues. I’ve never quite gone as far as sneaking off explicitly to email, though. I’ve once seen someone at a urinal talking on the telephone, which I thought was just a bit much.
One of the nice things about having a big archive of surveys is that when a survey like this one from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into the matter of mobile phone batteries comes along, I can point you at the results of a similar survey from last year and the year before.
Demographics
Between the 20th and 23th of May 2008 325 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.2% of the sample were female, 20.6% were in their twenties, 38.5% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, 9.2% in their fifties, and 4.9% in their sixties.
I usually recharge at work these days, with a USB adaptor thingie I got free at a conference once. It’s a wonderfully handy device, and it’s easier to remember to do it at work rather than at home. What I should also buy sometime is a clockwork recharger, or perhaps even this interesting one from Strapya, the solar-powered recharger. It looks really cool, and a snip at 1,995 yen! I don’t know how well it would work with overseas phones though. Read the rest of this entry »
With one of the favourite ways to pass the time in trains being fiddling with one’s mobile phone, this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into mobile phone email lets us look at what people are doing with them on the train.
Demographics
On the 10th of May 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in the private sector completed a closed online questionnaire. 75.5% of the sample was male, 11.5% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 38.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties. Note that as JR Tokai Express draws some of its monitor base from promotion through JR Tokai Express trains, there may very well be a bias towards people who frequently use the bullet train, where it is acceptable to talk on one’s mobile in between the carriages.
As noted above, as there are probably a lot of business travelers, the 11% who talk on trains might include a certain percentage who only do it on the shinkansen or other long-distance trains where such behaviour is acceptable.
Also in Q2, One Seg television at 12% just beats music playing, but many more people use iPods instead for their in-train audio entertainment.
The extra information from Q2 saying that three in four were checking route information strengthens my assumption that there were a lot of business travelers in the survey. Read the rest of this entry »
As the proud owner of a spam-free cell phone, this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into this topic of cell phone spam was rather interesting to see.
Demographics
Between the 1st and 4th of May 2008 312 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who were mobile phone email users completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample was female, 2.4% in their teens, 17.6% in their twenties, 37.6% in their thirties, 26.4% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older. Looking at when a similar spam survey was conducted in February 2007, and following the usual pattern of JR Tokai Express Researh, the original sample was actually 330 or 331 people, so just over 5% did not have mobile phones.
One could interpret the results from Q1 to mean that once you’re on a spammer’s list you’re going to get hit badly, as dodgy Japanese companies (or even reputable ones like Rakuten) are not backward about flooding your mailbox or selling on your address. Of course, my PC mailbox for the blog is anything but spam-free, although my private address gets just one per day or so, thanks to POBox.com’s spam filtering. Read the rest of this entry »
Softbank has just recently reported that for each of the last twelve months they have reported the highest growth in new contracts of all the mobile companies, and if the results from this recent survey, the 37th regular modile phone upgrade needs survey, by goo Research and published on japan.internet.com is anything to go on, Softbank’s growth looks set to continue.
Demographics
Between the 21st and 23rd of April 2008 1,000 members of the goo Research monitor group, and although it is not explicitly stated the figures imply that they all have mobile phones. 52.0% were female, 1.2% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 39.7% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, and 16.7% aged fifty or older.
Softbank has been heavily pushing their voice discount services, with intra-family calls being free all the time as one of the biggest selling points. DoCoMo’s response has been to offer the same deal, but only to those who have been with the company ten years or more! I am just now eligible for that, but I’ve got so used to using email that I cannot be bothered with it, myself!
I don’t know if there is a connection, but recently there’s been more people speaking on mobiles in trains – now that would be another interesting topic to investigate! Read the rest of this entry »
This is another fascinating survey with quite surprising results. The survey is from MyVoice, where they looked into the issue of email.
Demographics
Over the first five days of April 2008 14,815 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 14% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 17% in their fifties.
This is interesting to see how people use their computer and mobile phone email addresses. Mobile phones are restricted to mostly communication with friends and family, whereas computer-based email does many things.
Most of the new models of mobile phones support not just display but also the creation of HTML email; that is email with inline photos and emoji, but they do tend to chew up memory space on the mobile phones. I can’t really say there are many benefits from HTML email; having said that, DecoMail is HTML email and I couldn’t live without that feature now when communicating with the wife! Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve previously translated surveys looking at 
Perhaps I should temporarily rename the blog to “携帯 What Japan Thinks of the iPhone” since I’m joining in on the hype at every opportunity! This time it is JR Tokai Express Research Inc, as reported by japan.internet.com, carring out a survey into the 
Although a survey last year showed that 
One of the nice things about having a big archive of surveys is that when a survey like this one from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into the matter of 
With one of the favourite ways to pass the time in trains being fiddling with one’s mobile phone, this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into 
As the proud owner of a spam-free cell phone, this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into this topic of 
Softbank has just recently reported that for each of the last twelve months they have reported the highest growth in new contracts of all the mobile companies, and if the results from this recent survey, the 
This is another fascinating survey with quite surprising results. The survey is from MyVoice, where they looked into the issue of 
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