29th mobile phone upgrade needs survey

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.

In the sample, 52.7% were NTT DoCoMo customers, 28.9% with au (KDDI), 14.8% with Softbank, and 3.6% with WillCom. In addition, just 19 people had already taken advantage of number portability and changed service providers since the introduction just over two months ago.

Q1: Do you plan to take advantage of number portability and change your mobile phone service provider? (Sample size=964)

Yes	3.1%
No set plan, but could depending on the situation	37.0%
Not considered changing	59.9%

Q2: What mobile phone manufacturer’s handset are you most keen on currently? (Sample size=1,000)

Sharp	236
Panasonic	77
NEC	74
Sony-Ericsson	69
Toshiba	34
Kyocera	30
Motorola	28
Mitsubishi	25
Casio	19
Nokia	14
Sanyo	12
Fujitsu	10
Hitachi	9
Samsung	6
JRC	1
Pantech	0
HTC	0
Other	2
None in particular	354

Q3: When upgrading your mobile, what are the features that are important to you. (Sample size=1,000, multiple answer)

Memory card	342
Music playback	199
One Seg (terrestrial digital TV)	195
Infrared	176
FeliCa (Osaifu Keitai, electronic cash)	152
Water-resistance, shock-resistance	109
GPS	99
Full browser	69
Bluetooth	52
AM Radio	39
Wireless LAN	34
Document viewer (Excel, etc)	32
Digital radio	23
Changeable faceplate	19
Analogue television	18
Electronic compass	17
Other	23
Nothing in particular	331