世論 What Japan Thinks

This will most likely be the last proper survey for 2012, a look by MMD, Mobile Marketing Data Laboratory, at mobile carrier satisfaction levels, as reported by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Few demographics were given, just that on the 18th and 19th of December 2012 664 members of the MMD monitor group between the ages of 20 and 59 and who owned a smartphone from either docomo, au or SoftBank completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The results were listed alongside the results of a similar survey from May 2012.

Note that docomo only has seen a significant drop in satisfaction with signal strength and talk area; perhaps one reason is that there has been a number of network outages over the summer, and I still see occassional dropping out of my 3G signal in and around train stations at rush hour.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on goo Research’s sixth regular survey into mobile devices, which shows for the first time a reversal in smartphone growth.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 25th of October 2012 1,077 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

I heard from my wife that (sorry for the inaccuracy, but it’s the best I can do!) that a TV show recently said that according to a survey, about 40% of women (in their thirties or all ages, she wasn’t quite clear) who had smartphones either kept their feature phones, wanted to get an extra feature phone, or wanted to ditch their smartphones. This survey is perhaps the first indication of this trend that What Japan Thinks has picked up. I’ll be keen to see how the next survey looks, especially that although docomo’s summer 2012 line-up did not include any feature phones, their winter 2012-2013 line-up includes four bog-standard last-gen iMode clamshells from four different Japanese manufacturers.
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Macromill Research recently published a survey into Apple’s iPhone5, concentrating on existing iPhone users, but also featuring additional numbers from non-iPhone users who were thinking about buying said iPhone5.

Demographics

Over the 11th and 12th of October 2012 500 iPhone-using members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.6% of the sample were male and 42.4% were female, and rather than age groups, their history of iPhone use was given. 45.2% had used an iPhone for less than a year, 25.4% had used one for over a year but less than two, and 29.4% had used one for two years or more. In addition, another 196 non-iPhone users who were looking at buying the iPhone5 also completed a similar internet-based questionnaire over the same period.

There’s quite stunning loyalty figures in many of the tables below! For me the biggest eye-opener was the older iPhones having one in five satisfied, yet not one single Android user reported being so.
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MMD, Mobile Marketing Data Laboratory, recently published a report on a survey they conducted themselves into tablet ownership and purchase views.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 29th of October 2012 17,559 people, presumably members of the MMD monitor panel completed a presumably private survey. No further demographics were provided.

I’m sort-of thinking about a Nexus 7; it’s nice and cheap, and pretty good according to reviews by friends. I’m interested to see if the Japanese manufacturers exit the consumer tablet market; Sony at least offer a different design than just a slab, and I was disappointed to see that the Panasonic Eluga Live tablet doesn’t even merit a mention, although the 90,000 yen price tag might have something to do with it…
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Neo Marketing into smartphones.

Demographics

Over the 26th and 27th of September 2012 500 smartphone users between the ages of 20 and 59 chosen by some unstated method completed an internet-based questionnaire. No further demographics were given.

I spent some time today with my wife looking for an upgrade from her dumb phone to a smartphone. She seemed quite taken by the LG Optimus G, which does has impressive stats, and I wonder if she was actually unconciously influenced by the advert that’s running on the TV, as she says the guy 11 seconds in has a lovely smile, but she didn’t realise that was advertising the same phone as the one she was eyeing up.
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goo Research recently carried out asurvey into the interesting topic of smartphone privacy, although japan.internet.com only reported on the security lock results.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 9th of October 2012 1,080 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 15.6% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.3% in their fifties, and 12.8% aged sixty or older.

I don’t use any lock on my smartphone, myself. I’d like to see some sort of voice-based password that combined both voice and phrase recognition.
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One aspect where Japan lags far behind many other countries is the availability of Wi-Fi, so to see what people were doing regarding internet access when away from home, goo Research conducted a survey into Wi-Fi, the highlights of which were reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 18th and 19th of September 2012 1,088 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.7% aged sixty or older.

The guy above has found the Nintendo hotspot at the Tokyo Pokemon Center!

The number of access points in Japan is steadily increasing, but mostly branded for each of the mobile carriers, so one needs an account to access them, but fortunately the access is usually free with your mobile phone plan. SoftBank in particular are popping up everywhere, so they must be offering nice incentives for shops to install them, and docomo is slowly spreading through the rail network. Just last week the station next to the office got Wi-Fi, but sadly I cannot pick it up from my desk!

I was surprised to see tethering so low down on the list, however. In Q1SQ, “On the move” may include riding on public transport – some long-distance busses and bullet trains, for instance, offer such services.
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With the iPhone 5 out today, this survey from the female-targeted marketing research firm Her Story, reported on by japan.internet.com, into smartphones makes me curious to find out how many Madagala girls picked one up.

Demographics

According to the report published by Her Story on the 20th of September 2012, between the 9th and 14th of September 2012 500 mobile phone-owning women belonging to the Her Story monitor group aged between 20 and 49 completed an internet-based survey.

Madagala comes from the Japanese word mada, meaning still, and the portmandeau word Gala-kei, from Galapagos and keitai, which is the generic term for feature phones for the Japanese market, so Madagala girls are women who are still using feature phones. This appears to be a term Her Story invented for this survey, so in the same vein I have come up with Sudesuma girls which as you might guess means (well, I claim it means) women who have already moved up to smartphones.
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goo Research recently conducted a survey into smartphones, the results of which were reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 6th of September 2012 1,088 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

You’ll notice that the top five features in Q2 are all areas where the iPhone would score highly. On the other hand, the choice of answers does not seem to contain any specific feature-related replies, such as NFC smartcard, TV or radio reception, etc.

One of my colleagues who currently uses a feature phone on docomo (I think it is) was going to take a day off to queue for the iPhone 5, but it now appears that they have ordered it online instead!
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey by goo Research into mobile video use, the fifth time this regular survey has been conducted.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 6th of September 2012 1,015 mobile phone-using or smartphone-using members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private mobile internet-based questionnaire. 60.3% of the sample were female, 3.4% in their teens, 22.5% in their twenties, 36.3% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, and 11.7% aged fifty or older.

Being on a non-unlimited plan, I don’t watch any video on my mobile phone, and anyway I have a portable audio and video device on which I watch video. I’m currently making my way through The Goodies at a one episode per day pace, downloaded to my PC then converted to MPEG4 for consumption on the mobile device.
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