Japan's cell phone reality: 398Kbps in download speeds

In reality you can get as much as 398Kbps in average download speed on your cell phone in Japan. This conclusion is made by Impress R&D after they tested about twenty thousand cases. They simply asked users of three national carriers to access a Flash-based site with a speed measuring counter. After they gathered enough data, the average download speed stood at 398Kbps. Assuming the handsets measured were all 3G devices these are meager results. 398Kbps is about what you are supposed to get for uplink (at least with DoCoMo's advertised FOMA HSDPA) while downlink should be in a range of several megabits per second. Well, we all know that in theory it should be perfect...

Source: Impress R&D via Nikkei Trendy

Mobile online banking lags behind PCs in Japan

Online banking was introduced to public in Japan more than a decade ago and therefore it should enjoy a high rate of penetration. This was the idea of Rakuten, a Japanese eBay, when it decided to check the status of online banking in the country by conducting an online survey of 1,000 respondents.  

While the survey found that 68.2% of respondents have experience of online banking using their PC, it was surprising to see how few of them took advantage of mobile banking – only 15.6% used mobile phone to access their bank account. And this is in the country where Internet is accessed more from mobile phones than personal computers! The top three online banking activities on both PC and mobile phone included the following:

• Check account balance and status of withdrawals and deposits
• Make a money transfer to another account
• Make a payment for purchases made via online shopping or Internet auction

Source: Rakuten via Bizmakoto.jp

Consumers in Japan are OK with phones’ design but demand more functionality

Another market research firm iShare conducted an online survey of 476 respondents to find out about their level of satisfaction with current mobile phones. Interestingly, more end-users are dissatisfied with phone capabilities rather than with the design. The summary of the survey results follows below:

• 38.9% of respondents stated they are dissatisfied with the functionality of their phones; by carrier breakdown, 40.6% were not pleased with au, followed by Softbank (36.1%) and DoCoMo (35.9%)
• 40% of respondents dissatisfied with au stated bad response of keys, while Softbank’s users are not happy with small screens and DoCoMo’s phones are claimed to be slow
• Insufficient battery life was a common complain among all carriers
• 18.1% of respondents didn’t like their phones’ design; by carrier breakdown, DoCoMo (21.1%), au (16.7%), Softbank (13.9%)
• DoCoMo was blamed for buttons on its phones to be difficult to press, while au’s clamshells provide a challenge of opening them with one hand and Softbank’s phones look alike
• Regardless of carrier, users complained about smartphones being big and heavy

Source: iShare

Cell phone's camera feature is utilized by more than 90% of Japanese phone users

Market research company MMD published its latest findings about the usage of cameraphones in Japan (based on online survey of 2,532 respondents). The main points are the following

• 98.3% of respondents have used camera on their mobile phone
• 52.5% of those who have used cameraphone are satisfied with their experience
• About 70% of those who have used cameraphone use phone as a primary device to take pictures
  
• For more than 70% the main reasons of using cameraphone were the ability to take pictures in no time and the fact that the phone is always carried by the owner; among other reasons mentioned were the ability to email the picture immediately (60%), simple way to store pictures(40%), and the ability to easily upload pictures to social networks and other web destinations (20%). 
• Most respondents use camera feature of their phone several times a month while 28.5% of female users use camera two-three times a week

Source: MMD

Top ten handset models sold by DoCoMo in second week of Oct 08

ITC Network, a retail kisok operator, released NTT DoCoMo's handset sales popularity rank in the second week of this month. Panasonic P906i in metallic and black color variations was the favourite followed by Sharp's SH906i in white. Fujitsu's senior users-oriented phone Raku-Raku 5 F884iES in Golden color closed the top-five rank letting another Panasonic's P906i in white to get in front of it. See details below.

1. Panasonic P906i (Metallic)
   
2. Panasonic P906i (Black)
   
3. Sharp SH906i (White)
   
4. Panasonic P906i (White)
   
5. Fujitsu F884iES (Golden)
   
6. NEC N706i (Pink)
   
7. NEC N906iμ (Saphire Black)
   
8. NEC N906iμ (Pink Diamond)
   
9. Panasonic P706iμ (Champagne)
   
10. NEC N706iII (Polish Black)
    

Source: ITCNetwork via K-tai.impress.co.jp

Hudson wants to become a number one app developer for iPhone

Gaming powerhouse Hudson from Japan is eyeing the lucrative market of iPhone/iPod Touch applications. Recently one of its executives laid out ambitious goals for the future in the interview to local media. While it lacks brand awareness beyond Japan, Hudson is determined to expand internationally. Watch out for the new competitor! Below are some interesting points from the interview:

• During next six months Hudson intends to get into ten best content providers for Apple’s App Store and even become the top producer, if possible.
• As of now, 10 applications from Hudson are available through iTunes to iPhone/iPod Touch users, five more to be added soon.
• Hudson's so far best record in App Store was Bomber Man title ranked 16th at the time of the interview
• Typically 20 developers can come up with an iPhone app within less than a month at Hudson
• Games released by Hudson are priced from $0 to $7.99
• Hudson sees potential in networked games as they can become a building element for iPhone-based gaming communities

Source: IT Media +D

Forecast: Mobile handset sales to drop by 7% in Japan in 2008

Market research firm M-report predicts mobile handset shipments in Japan will decrease by 7.2% falling below the 46 million units in 2008. While in 2007, Japan’s mobile phone market registered a 5.2% growth over the previous year, stopping short of 50 million mark at 49.55 millions, the year of 2008 promises to be a tough year because of recent handset subsidy regulations and global economic gloom. Other interesting facts from M-report’s press release include the following:

• Japan market witnessed the launch of 140 mobile phone models in 2007
• 99% of phones shipped in 2007 were 3G devices, up 10.6% YoY
• One percent of phones shipped in 2007 were 2G devices, down 89.3% YoY
• 45% of phones shipped in 2007 were mobile broadcasting TV (one seg) enabled devices

Source: M-Report

In Japan, 60% have no idea what Android is

With the growing anticipation of the launch of HTC G1, the first Android based mobile device to be released this week in the US by T-Mobile, Japan’s market research firm iShare conducted an online survey of 422 respondents between 20 and 40 years old to measure the awareness of Android in Japan.

The results are very telling and not that surprising. The majority of respondents (60%) have never heard about Android, with another 25.6% knowing only the Android’s name.

Well-known among early adopters and techies Android will face its greatest challenge of winning the hearts of consumers. It will be interesting to see how T-Mobile USA intends to differentiate the first Android device from HTC, a very unimpressive piece of hardware (from a design point of view). It doesn’t have much space for maneuver. The looks and price are often the deciding factors in user’s choice of the mobile phone. And after iPhone, the appeal of smooth Web experience may not be that new and enough to get attention from end-users.

Source: iShare 

HTC aims for 5% of Japan mobile handset market

This week HTC held a press conference in Japan to share its vision and strategy of tackling Japan mobile handset market and also to mark the launch of HTC Touch Pro and HTC Touch Diamond devices along with Touch FLO 3D user interface. 

HTC's outlook for Japanese operations is positive with optimistic goal to grab 5% of domestic unit shipments in near future. HTC will need to ship about 2.6 million devices annually in order to achieve its 5% goal (annual handset shipments in Japan reached 52.3m in 2007, according to Gartner).

HTC's confidence is based on global success of HTC Touch smartphone, which sold in almost 3 million devices from its launch in 2007. The new and enhanced Touch-based models Touch Pro and Touch Diamond should drive more sales, according to HTC. Having launched HTC Diamond in May 2008, HTC reports global sales of 1 million devices with the forecast of 3 million shipments by the end of October 2008.

Along with new devices, HTC also refined its strategy in Japan, including the following moves:

• Target multiple carriers by shipping HTC Touch Diamond to DoCoMo, Softbank, and eMobile and HTC Pro to DoCoMo, KDDI au, and Softbank
• Provide a thorough localization for Japanese carriers enabling carrier-specific email, menus, text input, navigation apps in Japanese
• Bring HTC's latest handsets to Japan in timely fashion (in sync with global launch)...

Source: IT Media +D Mobile

iPhone sales go flat in Japan?

Market research company GfK has just released handset sales rankings for the first week of October in Japan. Surprisingly, Apple iPhone didn't make it to the country's top ten and even ended up third in Softbank's line up. Talking about the novelty effect evaporating...Overall, October is a slow month in Japan as the industry holds its breath for carriers' winter handset lineup announcements. But will Apple have something new to offer? I doubt that. To make it worse for Softbank, an iPhone's operator in Japan, none of its models was listed in top ten list. At the same time DoCoMo's models occupied the top list taking seven out of ten positions including the first top three. Unfortunately, GfK doesn't make public the handset sales numbers but at least you can see the top ten list below:

1. Panasonic P906i (NTT DoCoMo)
2. NEC N906iμ (NTT DoCoMo)
3. Sharp SH906i (NTT DoCoMo)
4. Sharp W62SH (KDDI au)
5. Toshiba W61T (KDDI au)
6. NEC N706iμ (NTT DoCoMo)
7. Panasonic 706iμ (NTT DoCoMo)
8. Fujitsu Raku-Raku Phone V (NTT DoCoMo)
9. Sony Ericsson W62S (KDDI au)
10. NEC N706iII (NTT DoCoMo)

Source: GfK via ITMedia

New page in my life

Hello friends! There is always a reason for something. The reason I kept my blog without updates for so long is that I finally relocated to Tokyo for personal and professional goals during this summer. Well, it took some time to settle down (to my surprise it took more than two weeks to get the Internet connected from Biglobe/NTT Higashi Nippon). But now I'm ready to keep this blog rolling enriched with my hands-on experience with Japanese mobile gadgets.

P.S. Let me know if you want to meet over a cup of coffee in central Tokyo sometime.