This survey from MMD Labo into mobile service provider usage shows three-quarters of Japanese using one of the three full-service, full-price carriers, but with all three launching new low-cost self-service plans, it will be interesting to see how these figures change.

I’m a long-term Docomo/Android/Sharp Aquos user myself, and I am considering switching to Docomo’s new plan ahamo, which gives you 20Gb and 5 minutes free per call for about 3,000 yen including tax.

Survey results

Q1: What type is your main mobile phone? (Sample size=40,000)

Android	45.8%
iPhone	41.0%
Feature phone	6.8%
Not so smartphone	1.3%
Other	0.2%
Don’t have a mobile phone	4.9%

The “Not so smartphone” is my term for a smartphone in a feature phone skin. Although consumer feature phones have stopped being produced, the flip-phone format has a small following with the older demographic, with phones like this one hiding their Android-ness behind a custom skin.

Looking at Android versus iPhone by age and sex, youth favoured the iPhone; 68.9% versus 25.6% for teenage boys, 82.7% versus 15.1% for teenage girls. From the thirties for men and forties for women, Android was more popular.

Q2: What is the carrier for your main mobile phone? (Sample size=37,731)

Docomo	35.0%
au	24.5%
SoftBank	15.7%
Y! mobile	7.2%
Rakuten UN-LIMIT	4.0%
UQ mobile	3.2%
MVNO	10.4%

Q3: What MVNO do you have for your main mobile phone? (Sample size=3,927)

Rakuten Mobile	24.3%
mineo	15.5%
OCN Mobile One	11.3%
Biglobe Mobile	8.8%
LINE Mobile	8.7%
IIJmio	7.7%
Aeon Mobile	7.0%
Other	16.7%

From the original sample, 12.7% said they also had a second mobile phone. They were asked the following:

Q4: What is the carrier for your secondary mobile phone? (Sample size=4,124)

Docomo	28.4%
au	19.5%
SoftBank	15.3%
Rakuten UN-LIMIT	14.1%
Y! mobile	5.8%
UQ mobile	2.8%
MVNO	14.0%

Q5A: What is the model of your main iPhone? (Sample size=16,409, top 10 answers)

Rank		Percentage
1	iPhone 8, 8 Plus	17.7%
2	iPhone 7, 7 Plus	13.1%
3	iPhone SE second generation	11.3%
4	iPhone 11	10.9%
5	iPhone XR	8.6%
6	iPhone 6s, 6s Plus	5.4%
7	iPhone X	4.7%
8	iPhone XS	4.5%
9	iPhone 11 Pro	3.4%
10	iPhone SE (First generation)	3.3%

Q5B: What is the model of your main Android phone? (Sample size=18,315, top 10 answers)

Rank		Percentage
1	Aquos series	27.1%
2	Xperia series	23.1%
3	Galaxy series	12.5%
4	Arrows series	6.5%
5	Huawei	6.3%
6	Google Pixel series	3.2%
7	Oppo	2.8%
8	Android One	2.8%
9	ZenFone series	2.1%
10	BASIO series	0.9%

Demographics

Between the 8th and 10th of February 2021 40,000 members of the MMD Labo monitor group aged between 18 and 69 years old completed a private internet-based questionnaire. No further demographics were provided.