Contactless payments, be they IC chip or barcode-based are perhaps becoming more popular due to COVID-19 making physical cash a potential transmission vector, so this survey from MMD Labo into smartphone QR Code-based payments may reveal some trends in Japan.

I mostly use smartphone-based public transport IC chip-based payments, JR East’s (the major train operator in the Tokyo area) SUICA. Once in a blue moon I use QR Code-based methods, the mobile phone operator Docomo’s dBarai system, and I once got 500 yen free credit from FamiPay.

Research results

Q1: How to you normally pay for things? (Sample size=45,000, multiple answer)

Cash
90.8%
Credit card
73.3%
Smartphone payment
41.2%
Card-form public transport IC card
28.5%
Other electronic cash
23.2%
Debit card
7.9%
Other
0.3%

Q2: Do you use QR-code based payments? (Sample size=45,000)

Yes, currently do (to SQ1)
33.3%
Used to use (to SQ1)
14.1%
Investigating using
4.5%
Know basically what they are, but haven’t used
19.6%
Know names of various services, but don’t know the details
7.9%
Heard the term, but don’t know about it
14.6%
Don’t know anything at all
6.1%

Q2SQ1: Which QR-code based payment service do you use the most? (Sample size=21,529)

PayPay
43.1%
dBarai
18.2%
Rakuten Pay
15.4%
au PAY
12.1%
LINE Pay
4.6%
Mercari
3.6%
FamiPay
1.5%
QUO Card Pay
0.9%
Yucho Pay
0.4%
Other
0.3%

I’m not sure exactly how they got the number of people for the next question; it’s not just the “Investigating using” from Q2.

Q2SQ2: Which QR-code based payment service are you looking at using the most? (Sample size=4,958)

PayPay
20.2%
Rakuten Pay
18.7%
dBarai
16.2%
au PAY
11.9%
LINE Pay
9.4%
Mercari
6.6%
FamiPay
6.0%
QUO Card Pay
5.5%
Yucho Pay
5.4%
Other
0.2%

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of January 2021 45,000 memnbers of the MMD Labo monitor group aged between 18 and 69 years old completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Further demographics were not given.


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