世論 What Japan Thinks

I remember a promise of a single Osaifu Keitai electronic wallet on one’s mobile phone replacing a physical walletful of point cards, and judging from this survey by iShare into usage of point services it is a desperately-needed service.

Demographics

Between th 1st and 3rd of March 2011 1,108 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.2% of the sample were male, 18.6% in their twenties, 35.8% in their thirties, and 45.6% in their forties. All those questioned were pre-screened to select only those who had points saved up.

Having said that a unified electronic card service would be desirable from the consumer point of view, of course the corporate view is that the more people losing track of them the better. There are some moves towards unification, with T-Point and Ponta Point both setting up a network of companies, but what’s resulted is basically two parallel systems, with competitors in each industry choosing one side or another. Furthermore, it is only large chains that can afford to join, so small shops still stick with stamp cards or other isolated systems.

As for internet-based points, I have a good few but they’ve all got just a few hundred points each but with nothing available to change them for, so I have let more than a few expire. I also have about a quarter of a million air miles I should use one day before they expire too…
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In the twelveth regular survey into electronic cash, conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com, it is now not just credit card electronic cash that has passed the 50% penetration mark, but also mobile phones have reached that milestone, although the majority of the mobile phone contactless IC chips are lying idle.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 30th of September 2009 1,094 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.2% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, and 27.5% aged fifty or older.

I don’t have an electronic cash-capable phone, but I recently bit the bullet and went for a smart card-based season ticket plus electronic cash functionality (Hankyu Stacia) and I must say it’s rather handy, although they have a horrendously unnecessarily complicated dual (could even be triple) parallel point system, although on my very first statement I got no points at all…
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This rather a bit too short to be really useful report published on japan.internet.com regarding goo Research’s fourth regular electronic money survey revealed that the Osaifu Keitai feature in most phones go unused.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23rd of October 2008 1,093 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.5% were in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, and 27.7% aged fifty or older.

Note that in Q2 Osaifu Keitai (literally Mobile Wallet) is a trademarked service of docomo, the main promoter of electronic cash, but now most phones from the three big operators come with the FeliCa chip inside, ready to work with most electronic cash providers.
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With the Japanese market getting frankly rather crowded, with new electronic money services being launched every other week it seems, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research on the matter of Osaifu Keitai, or mobile phone electronic wallets.

Demographics

Between the 31st of May and the 2nd of June 2007 1,093 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample was male, 17.1% in their teens, 19.5% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 11.2% aged sixty or older.

Most new mobile phones are equipped with the FeliCa chip, the RFID electronics from Sony that powers almost all the smart cards in Japan, so it is perhaps not terribly surprising that the awareness of Osaifu Keitai is so high. I’ve actually never owned a phone with the chip, however.
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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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iSHARE recently surveyed the memberrs of CLUB BBQ to see what their opinions on various issues surrounding mobile phones were, but the only results they posted in this news release were regarding electronic money and phone features. 718 people, 72% male replied to the private internet questionnaire carried out, according to the article, over two days at the end of February this year, but I presume this is a typo for January.

Note that CLUB BBQ is a free mail service that in return for free usage the members must regularly fill out surveys. It’s interesting that for this survey, and many others that iSHARE have performed, the men outnumber women two to one, whereas most other internet monitor-based surveys are around 60% female, perhaps indicating the CLUB BBQ is a more male-oriented site; judging by the various anime characters around the iSHARE web site I would say that this would seem to be true. This might suggest that the average CLUB BBQ user may very well be a heavier user of technology.
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