世論 What Japan Thinks

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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NEPRO Japan recently published the results of a survey that they conducted into mobile phones with GPS functionality. They conducted the respondents by means of an open survey available through the menu systems of the three main phone companies’ web systems, namely DoCoMo’s iMode, Vodafone (now Softbank) live! (which has just changed its name “Yahoo! Keitai”, judging by the advertisements I’ve seen), and au and TU-KA’s EZweb. Over 17 hours during the 7th and 8th of September 3,608 people successfully completed the survey; 58% were female, 2% in their teens, 35% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older.

GPS is Global Positioning System, a system for locating where you currently are based on triangulation with satellites. I’ve heard it doesn’t work so well in the shadows of tall buildings or of course underground, so one would think that the use in Japan is rather limited. However, there do seem to be a number of software tools that build around the GPS system, from walking navigation systems to substitutes for car navigation via, of course, keeping track of your children.
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