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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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 reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research on the subject of mobile phones and spam. Over three days at the start of February 330 peope from their monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 51.8% feamle, with 26.7% in their twenties, 40.6% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, 5.5% in their fifties, and 2.1% in their sixties.

I’ve been spam-free on my phone, perhaps because I only sign up with reputable firms. However, my wife has used YNot electronic greeting cards just recently, and has been plagued with a flood of spam from Rakuten partners. As I mentioned in another post when talking about Rakuten, they really are bad for sending spam and making it painful to unsubscribe. However, I think this time I have managed to unsubscribe from everything…
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In January infoPLANT published the results of research conducted over three days in the middle of December into the topic of mobile phone electronic wallets (Osaifu keitai). They interviewed 1,500 mobile phone users from their monitor panel; the split was 50:50 male and female, and 750 people aged from 15 to 29, and 750 aged from 30 to 59. In addition, 500 people were DoCoMo users, 500 au, and 500 SoftBank. The full report looks at many aspects of mobile phone usage, but this article just covers the highlights presented in their summary.

I’ve never owned a phone with the required electronic wallet IC chip inside, and just last week when my wife upgraded to a new phone with the required electronics, she only agreed to have the functionality enabled as we got an extra 1,000 yen discount for doing so!

I’ve never actually seen anyone use their mobile phone’s electronic wallet features – it might be interesting to ask how many people just use them once or twice, then give up and go back to another method.

It’s interesting to note in Q4 that over a third have no interest in any electronic wallet features.
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With my recent post on mobile phone upgrades being picked up by Mobile Opportunity, I thought it would be interesting to look at a similar topic reported by japan.internet.com, this time a look by Cross Marketing Inc at the Spring 2007 mobile phone models. On the 31st of January and 1st of February 300 people from their internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet questionnaire. As usual for Cross Marketing, sex and age groups were evenly divided; 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in each of the age groups from teenage to those in their fifties.
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A couple of weeks ago japan.internet.com published the results of goo Research’s 29th monthly survey into mobile phone upgrade needs. Over three days at the start of January exactly 1,000 members of their monitor panel (presumably all mobile phone owners) successfully completed a private internet-based survey. 53.0% of the sample was female, 2.1% in their teens, 19.7% in their twenties, 39.0% in their thirties, 25.1% in their forties, and 14.1% aged fifty or older.

Just yesterday, my wife upgraded her phone – what sold the Panasonic P703i to her even more than the pink colouring (actually, she bought the wavey blue one) was the inclusion of Lisa and Gaspard icon sets.
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