世論 What Japan Thinks

Perhaps I over-estimate the average Japanese consumer’s desire for value before reputation, but I found the results of this survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into computers at home quite surprising.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 8th of September 2008 1,001 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 3.0% of the sample were male, 12.7% in their teens, 22.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

NEC, Fujitsu, Toshiba and Sony have TV tuners in most of their line-up, as well as integrated features for recording television shows to disk, so their desktops, usually equipped with wide-screens, can easily double as televisions in cramped Japanese homes.

In the notebook field, Panasonic come a very poor 10th with not even 3% of the home market, despite an earlier survey showing them to be the most popular business notebook. The price of them at retail is frightening, quite frankly, and they come with very few of the bells and whistles that are loaded (overloaded?) onto the other brands. Wondering out loud with absolutely no information to back this up, but given that they have recently released Viera-branded (their TV technology) mobile phones, I wonder if they’ll build a Viera notebook (or even desktop) to try to capture more of the home market?

Finally, despite the sub-notebook market being big in the West at least, and despite many shops selling an Asus Eee PC for just 100 yen if you take out a two-year subscription to the 3G mobile internet service from E-Mobile, Asus and Acer with their Aspire One barely register in sales or purchase intentions.
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Here’s a quickie report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into customising one’s desktop at home.

Demographics

On the 31st of March 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in either the public or private sector successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 78.5% of the sample was male, 12.1% in their twenties, 39.0% in their thirties, 36.9% in their forties, 10.6% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

I don’t bother with gadgets myself. I did once try out Opera-based ones, but they just got in the way, as does Google’s toolbar stuff, so I keep that safely out of the way docked at the bottom of the screen.
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Gadgets and widgets on the desktop annoy me; I have Google Desktop installed, but I keep it parked in the task bar as when it is active it either just gets hidden when I run applications maximised, or the frequent updates distract me when trying to do work in other windows. Additionally, Opera widgets just didn’t do anything for me. This survey by MyVoice looks at what the average Japanese internet user thinks of these desktop applications, widgets and gadgets.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of June 2007 13,376 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a web-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties or older.

I’m not surprised that calendars come out on top – about half the people in my office run some ancient-looking calendar app on their desktops, but I’ve not seen anyone with anything else. I did once try out a Post-It Note™-like app or two, but as mentioned above for other application types, they just didn’t appeal to me at all.
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