世論 What Japan Thinks

With most mobile phones these days coming in at over 50,000 yen – interestingly, for docomo at least, most of their smartphone range is well under half the price of the feature phones – it surely must be scaring a lot of people off upgrading. This recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile phone price and usage fees revealed such a trend.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 29th of November 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, 2.7% in their teens, 17.3% 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.

Looking at docomo’s range (I am a docomo user), it seems to be anything that supports docomo’s walled garden iMode service gets a price tag of around 60,000 yen, but the smartphones which don’t are between 15,000 and 30,000 yen. The only exception seems to be LG devices; they have recently been trying to break into the Japanese market and are embracing the Japanese standards of decomail and emoji feature phones, but in order to get over the psychological hurdle of not being Japanese, they are using price as a weapon.

In addition, I work for a mobile phone manufacturer, and even though the company sells their own products in the on-site shops, even with staff discounts we are still being asked to pay 45,000 yen for even the year-old phones, and for that womderful discount are expected to migrate our address books from one device to another all by ourselves.
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With tickets having gone on sale last week, with the usual flock of idiots punters buying tickets by the metre, let’s have a look with Macromill Inc at the 2009 Year-end Jumbo Lottery.

Demographics

Over the 10th and 11th of November 2009 1,000 members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% aged fifty or older.

Having a superstition for buying the tickets at a shop that sells a lot of them is utterly pointless, as they sell a lot of winners because a lot of people buy! I’d love to see official statistics showing that the ratio of winners to sales is similar regardless of volume, rather than that star signs nonsense from the link above.

In Q7SQ5, I’m sure I heard somewhere why people put tickets in the fridge, but I cannot for the life of me remember what it was! Can anyone help me out?
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With tickets having gone on sale last week, with the usual flock of idiots punters buying tickets by the metre, let’s have a look with Macromill Inc at the 2009 Year-end Jumbo Lottery.

Demographics

Over the 10th and 11th of November 2009 1,000 members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, 25.0% in their forties, and 25.0% aged fifty or older.

Note that the Japanese Year-end Jumbo Lottery, and all the other major lotteries would be more accurately called raffles. There are a limited number of tickets on sale, and the draw ensures that only a certain number of winners come out, and for whatever reason they have decided that making 210 jackpots between 100 and 300 million yen is better than twenty or so yen billionaires.

In Q6, buying on average 22 tickets per person is quite stunning!
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With the busiest season for home printers coming up, namely the creation of New Year cards, it is quite timely that goo Research, as reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at printers at home.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 20th of November 2009 1,093 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I’ve read stories than in the US ink jets are so cheap yet cartridges are quite expensive, people just throw away the whole printer when they run out.

I post all my empty cartridges into Yodobashi Camera’s recycle box. Checking my local rubbish collection rules, I see that the cartridges are burnables, so in Q3 are about one in five incorrectly disposing of their items? It also mentions in the notes column that if possible, one should use a recycle box at the shops.
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And small pricks were hated by three in four Japanese women, according to this survey from iShare on injections, a perhaps disappointingly entitled topic, but predictably disappointing given my prediliction for such spicy headlines.

Demographics

Between the 6th and 11th of November 2009 538 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample were male, 32.9% in their twenties, 29.7% in their thirties, and 37.4% in their forties.

I hate injections, and look away, pull a face and clench my fist whenever I need to give a blood sample or whatever. It’s not the pain (although that’s not much fun), just the idea of the whole thing. Now I think about it, I don’t have a problem getting an injection at the dentist, probably because all the rest of the implements scare me so a wee bit of anesthesia can only help.
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iBridge Research Plus recently did one of their demographically narrow surveys, this time looking at Gmail. The survey was reported on as usual by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 24th of November 2009 300 young women members of the iBridge research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All of the sample were women, 22.3% of them in their twenties, 42.0% in their thirties, and 35.7% in their forties.

In October of this year, a survey of web mail usage amongst the same demographic found Yahoo! mail first, Hotmail second, local providers goo and infoseek third and fourth, then Gmail fifth.

The text suggests that the reason prize draws and online shopping are popular is the strength of Gmail’s spam filters, although I’ve never tried them out with Japanese spam myself.

I use Gmail for none of the below reasons – one is to manage blog email, the second is for a travel address, and the third is that it became necessary to register one in order to access other Google services.
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A recent survey from iShare into going to the cinema by oneself is a bit difficult for me to interpret, especially as I feel there should have been a question on why people go to the cinema by themselves rather than with others.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 10th of November 2009 531 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.3% of the sample were male, 34.7% in their twenties, 30.9% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.

Rather appropriately, I’m translating this survey as I’m riding on a train to meet my wife who went to see two movies alone today. Although a lot of foreigners complain about the cinema being 1,800 yen a ticket, if you’re regularly paying that much you’re doing it wrong! Today, for instance, is the first of the month, so all tickets are 1,000 yen each, plus by using the ticket stub in a restaurant in the shopping mall complex we can get a free cake each, plus we have cinema mileage cards so we get both bonus points that can be exchanged for popcorn and finally a see-six-get-one-free system.

Looking at the winter films below, and tying in with yesterday’s survey, a few of them seem to be live-action versions of manga or anime.
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This recent survey from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at the rather interesting issue of answering mobile phone calls.

Demographics

On the 24th of November 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a private mobile internet-based questionnaire (I think). The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

Note that just about all mobile phones in Japan will display the calling number, and if the caller is registered in the phone book the name will also display, which I guess is a pretty standard mobile feature all over the world! Calls from public phone boxes will display as number unknown, as well as people who dial a prefix to hide their caller ID.

For unknown numbers, there are a few databases of nuisance callers for you to check. The fastest way I find is to type the number straight into Google with no spaces or hyphens, and if a match (in Japanese of course!) comes up from one of these databases you can know it’s an unsolicited call. I’d give you a URL or two, but I don’t have them bookmarked as I always use the search method!
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Having looked in October at nuclear power in the Kinki region, today the topic is also nuclear power, but with a sample from all over the country, in a survey conducted by the Cabinet Office Japan.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 25th of October 2009 3,000 members of the public randomly selected from resident registries were approached for face-to-face interviews. 1,850 people, or 61.7%, agreed to take part in the survey. More detailed demographics were not given.

In Q5, the NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) factor is rather high, but it’s not a surprising result. However, financial support (or bribes, I suppose) to communities hosting nuclear plants is something the government does, or more correctly did, as one of the many victims of the Democratic Party of Japan’s slash-and-burn attack on spending has been the abolition of the said government subsidy/bribe. The lack of this will surely affect local opinion in the areas that get selected for high-level nuclear waste disposal facilities.
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With one live-action version of a manga comic in cinemas right now (Kaiji) and another soon to come out (Nodame Cantabile), this recent survey from iShare into manga, anime and live action movies is quite timely.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 10th of November 2009 531 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.3% of the sample were male, 34.7% in their twenties, 30.9% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.

Not being a manga fan myself, I’m not really aware of any such activities, and even when it comes to Hollywood movies converting DC and Marvel characters to movies, I’m not familiar enough with the cartoon version to have any preconceptions shattered.
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