世論 What Japan Thinks

Over one week at the start of March, infoPLANT conducted a survey by means of a public questionnaire available throughNTT DoCoMo’s iMode menuing system on the subject of online shopping habits. Note that since this is a self-selecting survey, attracting perhaps heavy mobile phone users, there might be some bias towards higher levels of shopping than in the average phone-owning population.

Demographics

6,398 people, 66.1% of them female, successfully completed the survey. 3.1% were in their teens, 33.0% in their twenties, 43.1% in their thirties, 17.7% in their forties, and 3.2% aged fifty or older.

I personally have never bought anything through a mobile phone web site as I restrict all my purchasing activity to a full-size computer, and I’m really surprised to see clothes doing so well, but in part that might be due to people choosing clothes through a paper catalogue then completing the order by mobile phone.
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Having just translated a look at GPS functionality according to JR Tokai Express Research, along comes another survey by NEPRO JAPAN also on Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality, conducted by means of a public survey made available through the menuing systems of DoCoMo iMode, Yahoo! Keitai, and au EZweb mobile phone portal sites, available over the 8th and 9th of March.

Demographics

3,897 people self-selected themselves; 58% were female, 3% in their teens, 37% in their twenties, 43% in their thirties, and 17% aged 40 or older.

Note than in the previous survey about 21% said they had used mobile phone GPS functionality, but here 30% had. The difference can perhaps be explained by the fact that this age group was younger, self-selecting, and conducted through mobile phones rather than PC internet, therefore this survey would most likely attract a higher percentage of people with newer phones, thus more GPS users.
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Recently, japan.internet.com reported on some research conducted by JR Tokai Express Research regard mobile phones with Global Positioning System (GPS) features. The research was conducted between the 20th and 22nd of March amongst their online monitor community.

Demographics

330 people successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.2% of the sample was male, 22.1% in their twenties, 43.0% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 7.9% in their fifties, and 3.3% in their sixties.

Note that in the current model line-ups, all of the top-end DoCoMo’s (the 903i series) have GPS, as do most of the au models, and according to the SoftBank web site, the following models have GPS: Toshiba’s 911T, 910T, 904T, 813T, 812T, 811T, and 810T and Sharp’s 904SH. Checking a previous survey on the Spring 2007 model line-up, only two of the Toshiba phones above are new models. According to a directive from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, from April of this year all new 3G phone models must have GPS capability built-in, so it seems that SoftBank has quite a lot of work to do.

Also note that the “Anshin Navi” service mentioned in the Q1SQ2 refers to a service by au that allows parents to track their children, or more correctly, their children’s mobile phone. DoCoMo also have a similar service available through their Sanyo SA800i phone.
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japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into the subject of characters, here meaning mainly celebrity or cartoon character items, of the sort you see dangling off every other phone, it seems.

Demographics

Over the 14th and 15 of March 300 internet users responded to their survey. The group 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.

I don’t think I’d go as far as downloading audio samples from cartoons or movies, but I must admit to liking some of the SAN-X stuff, especially Monokuro-boo, and would love to find some low-cost deco-mail clip art – the only site I found was 300 yen per month. For the time being, however, I make do with copying all the Lisa and Gaspard icons from my wife’s mobile! As I think I’ve mentioned before, Frente Spiral’s web site has a lot of nice free Pinky-Monkey wallpaper and icons for your mobile.
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japan.internet.com recently publishd the results of a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into the use of music playback features in mobile phones. Between the 7th and 8th of March they interviewed 300 mobile phone users from their online monitor group.

Demographics

From the 300 respondents, exactly half were of each sex, and exactly one fifth were in each age group from teens to the fifties.

Music playback is heavily promoted on phones, from DoCoMo’s Napster service and au’s LISMO to the forthcoming Apple iPhone, but how exactly are people using their features? For me, my phone is almost permanently in manner mode, and I actually haven’t downloaded any music whatsoever onto my new phone, nor used its SD Card playback feature.
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infoPLANT recently took a look at one of the first things that strikes many visitors to these shores, the interest in and habits surrounding high-class brand-name clothes, accessories and jewelry. Although this research was conducted by infoPLANT’s usual method of a self-selecting call for participants sent out through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode menuing system, the self-selecting nature should not have too averse an effect on the replies, I believe.

Demographics

Over a week between the 20th and 27th of February, 4,989 mobile phone users successfully completed the survey. 34.9% of the group was male, 2.8% were in their teens, 32.8% in their twenties, 43.1% in their thirties, 18.3% in their forties, and 2.9% aged fifty or older.

I don’t think I’ve actually ever bought a posh brand item myself, and the only interest I have in them is ensuring I drag wifey away as quickly as possible whenever she sets her eyes upon them! She used to be quite a bit of a brand freak, but she’s mostly recovered now! As I’ve got small wrists, I can’t even wear the average posh watch without it looking far too chunky, not that I’d want to anyway, as Rolex wearers always gives me the impression of being dodgy second-hand car salesmen.
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NEPROJAPAN recently published the results of a survey they conducted into how mobile phones have changed their lives. A similar survey was conducted last year. Respondents were solicited by means of an option through the menuing systems of the three main mobile phone service providers, namely DoCoMo’s iMode, SoftBank’s Yahoo! Keitai, and au’s EZweb over a two day period from the 8th to 9th of February.

Demographics

Of the 3,746 who successfully completed the survey, 56% were female, 3% in their teens, 36% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 17% in their forties. Note that due to the self-selecting nature of the survey, heavy users of mobile phones will most likely be over-represented in the figures.

Recently, the one thing that I’ve started using much more, now that both my wife and I have a phone that supports it, is Deco-Mail, HTML mail for mobiles, which basically means lots and lots of animated GIFs in mail.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research towards the end of February investigating the subject of opinions about mobile phone weight and size. Note for reference that a survey last year found that the most popular by far form factor for phones was the clamshell.

Demographics

Of the 330 people from JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor pool who completed the survey, 51.2% were male, 25.8% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

When I pick up a typical Japanese model, to me there just seems to be nothing but a skeleton there. Nothing to hold on to, and I am afraid to squeeze too hard in case they break. I worry too about living with them, perhaps they are all looks and no substance. I feel the same way about modile phones too.

Seriously, I do find most of the DoCoMo 900 series too chunky, but I’m happy with my standard-sized Panasonic P702iD clamsheel. Also note that there are three news phones claiming to be the thinnest in the world, given certain qualifications: the DoCoMo N703iμ and P703iμ are both 11.4mm thick clamshells, and the SoftBank 708SC is an 8.4mm candybar. In addition, the positively obese Motorola MOTORAZR, at 14.9mm, is being promoted quite heavily in Japan.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted on the 21st of February by JR Tokai Express Research into Apple’s new iPhone mobile phone.

Demographics

330 people from their monitor group employed in public and private enterprises completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 79.4% were male, 17.3% in their twenties, 45.8% in their thirties, 29.4% in their forties, 6.7% in their fifties, and 0.9% in their sixties.

Note that most of the features in the iPhone are already available in other phones, and even the Maps feature mentioned in Q2 is surpassed by existing applications like NaviTime (US version). There is also the question of how the touch-screen would work with Japanese input – would they just emulate the existing keypad entry, or have they a novel idea for that?
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MyVoice recently reported on the results of a survey into the matter of mobile phones. It may be of interest to cross-reference with yesterday’s translation of a similarly-themed MyVoice survey into mobile phone service provider image.

Demographics

13,252 people from MyVoice’s internet community answered the questionnaire between the 1st and 5th of February. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 25% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

The two main problems I find with mobile phones are first, even if you stay with the same service provider and the same mobile phone maker, even just a minor model upgrade can mean that the internal software is completely rewritten, and one needs to relearn the quirks of the new email system or character input methods. Second, new models sometimes see not just a feature rewrite, but a degradation in usability. For example, my old phone allowed me to check what the particular ring tone setting were for each contact group in my phone book; now I cannot. I know from working with other projects that usability sadly seems to come pretty low down in the pecking order when designing software.
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