世論 What Japan Thinks

Anyone who has been in Japan (or has been reading this blog) for any length of time will be aware of how often QR Codes, these square 2D bar codes, appear in magazine advertisements and promotional flyers. However, one aspect that I haven’t seen investigated up until now has been what other methods do people use to access these URLs. To rectify this, I present a translation of a report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile search.

Demographics

Over the 19th and 20th of December 2007 300 mobile phone users from the Cross Marketing monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. Exactly 50% of the sample was male, and exactly 20% were in their teens, 20% in their twenties, 20% in their thirties, 20% in their forties, and 20% in their fifties.

Note that in Q1 the number sending an empty email seems perhaps rather high. There could be two explanations for this; first, in-train advertisements do not, on the whole, feature QR codes, perhaps for reason of it being embarrassing to take a photo with the accompanying sound; second, sometimes QR codes encode an email address rather than a URL, so in these cases some of the respondents described the final action.
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Perhaps this Christmas many children in both Japan and the rest of the world found a mobile phone in their stockings. To see how elementary school-aged children view their phones, goo Research released on Christmas day the results of a survey of users of Kids goo (goo’s child-targeted portal) on children’s use of mobile phones.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 26th of November 2007 1,100 elementary school-aged users of the Kids goo portal completed a public survey available through the web site. 60.0% were girls, 3.7% in first year of elementary school, 4.8% in second year of elementary school, 7.7% in third year of elementary school, 20.0% in fourth year of elementary school, 28.9% in fifth year of elementary school, and 34.9% in sixth year of elementary school.

In Q6, it’s interesting to see the differences between the sexes; boys have significantly less contact with friends through mobile phones. The reasons for this would be fascinating to investigate further; is it that girls are more sociable with their friends, or do boys prefer to meet in person, or is there another driving force behind the differences?

In Q7 I’m really surprised that 45% of the mobile phone using children have basically no parent-enforced usage rules. I would hope that the parent has set up limits with the service provider such as blocking potentially harmful sites or even turning off internet access altogether, and other limits such as not allowing them to make any payments for site access or content download.
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Following on in a way from the recent survey on changes in internet services, this time japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone usage in 2007.

Demographics

Over the 12th and 13th of December 2007 300 mobile phone-using members of the Cross Marketing monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 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 20.0% in their fifties.

My number of emails is similar, although packet volume has increased due to getting a Deco-Mail (HTML graphic mail) compatible phone! Internet usage is slightly down, as the higher-end phone means I tend to get more graphic-heavy pages pushed at me. Voice calling is as non-existent as ever, despite a talking dog trying to persuade me otherwise! What about you lot?

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With many Japanese companies paying winter bonuses at the end of week, this might be a good time to look at a recent survey reported on japan.internet.com and conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into portable games machines.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing online monitor group successfully competed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split exactly 50:50 male and female in each age group. These age groups were 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.

As I’ve probably mentioned too many times already (perhaps I should make an Amazon wish list so you can all buy me a present?) I really want to get the new red and black DS Lite. I have two Japanese learning titles waiting for me at home! Perhaps this weekend…?

One of the reasons, perhaps, for the good PSP figures in Q3 is that, as one can see from Q1, a lot of people already have a DS or DS Lite, therefore wanting a PSP makes sense. However, how many of them will actually go out and spend the money is open to debate.

Finally, in Q2, I get the impression that DS Lites are now in sufficient stock almost everywhere, but perhaps with the end of year spending spree coming up, it will get difficult to get your hands on again? You may want to cross-reference these figures with a similar question asked in March this year.
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Having looked recently at the mobile market situation after one year of mobile number portability, here we look at the logical extension to this service in a report published by japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into PC and mobile phone email.

Demographics

On the 13th of November 2007 331 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor group employed in either the public or private sector (JR Tokai Express Research seems to have recently given up on the other demographics) successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.1% were male, 8.8% in their twenties, 42.0% in their thirties, 36.6% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 2.1% in their sixties.

Most internet service providers offer mail forwarding services, but if you change providers you need to keep paying the old provider a small fee to cover the old address. However, long ago I moved my main private address to one provided by PoBox.com. For a small fee, about $50 every three years I think, they maintain an address that I can forward whereever I want. However, this won’t work for mobile phone email. However, looking at the results for Q1SQ1, it looks like I am the only person willing to pay!
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I thought this suvey might have been better with a title like “Japanese cell phone strap usage”, but in the interests of truth in advertising, the headline you see gets straight to the point of this article! japan.internet reported on a recent survey conducted by goo Research into not buying cute cell phone straps from Japan but actually just mobile phone straps.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 5th of November 2007 1,007 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% were male, 18.1% in their teens, 20.2% in their twenties, 17.1% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, 16.9% in their fifties, and 10.8% aged sixty or older.

My own phone features straps featuring Monokuro Boo cubic pigs, a regional comedian, Hello Kitty (of course!), Miffy, Totoro, and a teddy bear. Really, I’m not making this up just to get you to buy cute cell phone straps from Japan.

Also note that the iPhone doesn’t have a eyelet to allow you to attach kawaii Japanese mobile phone straps to it, a mistake I think they must rectify to make it a success in Japan.

In the interests of disclosure, I ought to point out that this article may contain affiliate links, not that you couldn’t have guessed based on all the links trying to sell kawaii cell phone straps from Japan.
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Here’s perhaps a first for all the surveys I’ve translated over the two years or so the site’s been running; a survey not specifically concerned with an adult topic but it actually has data on adult issues rather than leaving the items to fall under the “other” catchall. This event occured in a survey conducted by MyVoice into mobile manga (comics).

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2007 17,110 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

Q3 is the interesting answer! I’d love to see a more detailed by sex breakdown, especially to see who is reading the BL comics. I wonder what percentage is feamle, as my wife has a few manga that may fall into that category, but they are written and drawn by women and the characters seem very Takarazuka-esque, but then it becomes GL; indeed, is there such a category?
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into portable digital musics players. Note that this survey is concerned with just hard disk or memory-based specialised music players; CDs and MDs are excluded, as are mobile phones with music playback capabilities, and PDAs.

Demographics

Over the 24th and 25th of October 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor pool who owned a portable digital music player successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample was male, 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.

I don’t really think there is much new in this survey, but I present it just as another data point that ilustrates Apple’s strength in the Japanese marketplace.
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As most Apple and iPhone watchers are aware, shortly after releasing the iPhone at $600 they dropped the price to $400, although they did give refund vouchers to many customers. The press thought little of it, although I did not see any statistics to suggest how the average US resident felt. To find out what the average Japanese person felt looking in from the outside, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into Apple’s brand image, and in this article focusing on the iPhone pricing.

Demographics

On the 25th of October 2007 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the public or private sectores completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 81.8% of the sample was male, 9.4% were in their twenties, 40.9% in their thirties, 37.9% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 2.7% in their sixties.

As I have no intention of purchasing an iPhone myself, I can’t say I really felt much about their strategy, and given how many fanboys Apple seems to have, I couldn’t really understand the need to cut the price so early.
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A constantly popular destination for Google searches is a survey from two years ago on QR Codes, the rather popular 2D square barcodes that appear all over the place and have been supported by almost every camera-equipped mobile phone for the last few years. To find out how usage patterns are today, let’s look at a recent survey from MyVoice into mobile phone QR Codes.

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2007 17.091 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

The results here might be worth cross-referencing against last month’s survey, also from MyVoice, on mobile phone cameras.

Most of the QR codes I scan are from print advertisements, usually in the magazine that comes along with our mobile phone bill every month, and are shortcuts to web pages offering free downloads of various stuff. I do find them very convenient, but I’ve never seem a colour QR code bar in one article I read about them. Whether or not my phone can decode them, I do not know, although I suspect the answer is no.
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