10 reasons why Japan will hate the iPhone (or maybe not)
- June 19th, 2008
- 12 Comments
Japan’s most renowned business newspaper Nikkei recently released the result of a survey among Japanese consumers according to which 91% don’t want to buy an iPhone. Tokyo-based web research company iShare [JP] conducted the survey on June 5th and 6th.
The findings are not representative for a number of reasons. There were only 402 respondents, but Japan has a population of 128 million. They were asked after Softbank annnounced they will release the iPhone in Japan, but before the presentation of the 3G iPhone. The 3G version will launch in this country on July 11th. Also there is no detailed information on pricing and other important factors available yet.
Judging by my experience as a geek living in Japan, I can however think of 10 good reasons why the iPhone might have a hard time in this country’s cell phone culture:
1. No One-Seg digital TV tuner
2. No Felica (e-wallet) function
3. Weak camera
4. Only one panel color available
5. Display of cute emoticons, emoji, is difficult
6. Japanese cell phone contracts are long-term (2 years standard, almost no pre-paid) and expensive to terminate
6. A lot of Japanese already own an iPod Touch (launched in October 2007)
7. Japanese women with long fingernails will not buy it (and there are a lot of them)
8. High-school kids use cell phones mainly for emails using one thumb, a dialpad and a jog dial (ideal for Japanese character input)
9. Softbank will probably charge a lot of Yen for the handset itself, accessories, data plans etc.
10. Japan is the toughest cell phone market in the world
(high level of technical sophistication, critical customers, high innovation rate etc. )
Despite these factors, the iPhone has good chances of playing a good role in this country. Softbank and Apple will surely spend a lot of marketing money to make sure every Japanese will know about their new product. And people over here love Apple. So my guess is the iPhone will do OK, but not spectacularly well - we will see next month.
chlitto (Who am I?)
3 months ago
imho it will do bad:)
no 1seg
no keyboard
limited software
Joe (Who am I?)
3 months ago
“There were only 402 respondents, but Japan has a population of 128 million.”
You obviously know nothing about statistics. The size of the population has very little impact on the accuracy of the survey. Surveying 402 people out of a population of 128 million will give you the same accuracy as surveying 402 people out of 1 million people as log as both are randomized properly.
Chuck (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Reason #11, The iPhone is longer than the average Japanese weiner.
CheapyD (Who am I?)
3 months ago
The important part of this survey is that 8.9% of the respondents said “I am planning to purchase one.”
If even a fraction of that number actually take the plunge, that will be an incredible victory for Apple.
Serkan Toto (Who am I?)
3 months ago
@CheapyD
You are right.
@Joe
There is no way to choose 402 respondents so that they represent a nation of 128 million properly. But you are right, this number alone is not enough.
Unfortunately, the article is not too detailed on that matter (male:female ratio, age of the respondents, location etc.) but they do say this:
“Of carriers that the respondents were subscribing to, NTT DoCoMo accounted for 39.8%, followed by au at 26.9%, SoftBank Mobile at 22.9% and the other carriers including Emobile and Willcom at 6.5%.”
-> complete crap, since DoCoMo’s share among the 100 million people owning a cell phone in Japan exceeds 50%, while KDDI stands at 29% and Softbank at 19% (share-wise, you can basically forget other carriers)
Yves (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Another good reason not to buy it: battery cannot be replaced (easily).
(DoCoMo replaces the battery for free after a year of usage, if it gets weaker)
Lars (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Toto-san:
The survey has M/F ratio along with ages:
http://blogch.jp/up/2008/06/16113040.html
Number of valid responses: 402 people
Investigation day: June 6, 2008
Ratio of male to female: Man: 57.5% Woman: 42.5%
Age: 20’s: 12.2% - 30’s: 43.5% - 40’s: 34.8% - Other 9.5%
Serkan Toto (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Thank you, Lars!
Saint (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Cool!!
Norbert (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Actually the the first two reasons don’t really matter. Only a small percent of the people watches One-seg on their phones. Why waste good battery life on crapy programs? In the 6 years I’ve been here, I think I saw about 3 people actually watching TV on their phones. The same goes for Felica. It’s much easier to pay with credit/cash cards than go through the fuss of recharging your phone.
E-moji don’t matter either. It is true that many Japanese use them, but it’s not something that they cannot live without. Besides you probably can use emoticons.
A 2 megapixel camera is not weak. You do not need anything more powerful unless you intend to print posters.
In what the price is concerned, Softbank charges about 20K for the 16Gb model and about 30 some K for the 32 Gb model, which is awfully cheap considering that the cheapest Docomo phones are at least 40-50K, and don’t look nearly as good as the iPhone. In my oppinion, the one phone that comes nearest to it design-wise, would be the LG PRADA which goes for about 90K.
Regarding the batery, the last time I changed the battery in my phone was when Docomo sent me one, because they found out the the batch mine was from was deffective.
Long nails might come in handy because this way, you don’t leave fingerprints on the screen.
So considering all the above, I think the iPhone might do quite well in Japan. And don’t forget that this is a country where appearences matter the most.
batman (Who am I?)
3 months ago
Japan a country were appearances matter the most? Depends what you mean by appearance. I would not consider people here to be vain. People seem to care much more about position and respect than physical appearance. A wealthy salary man or a professional like a doctor, gets more respect than a handsome 7-11 clerk. Reputation, respect and position far out way physical attractiveness.
In terms of cellphones, Japanese phones tend to be bulky and rather ugly. Most people care more about the features available than the appearance of the phone. They place more value in being able to customise it with stickers etc. than it looking beautiful. I consider my two year old uk cellphone to be superior in appearance to anything I’ve seen available on the Japanese market, although way behind in features.
The biggest problem seems to be the lack of S!Mail, which is the unique email address all cellphones get here. Softbank will provide an alternative, but how successful that will be, I don’t know. S!mail is great because you send/receive emails just as you might an Sms. No need to download emails, no need to have 3G signal or wifi. IF the new email service offered by Softbank is 3G signal dependent, it will be a lot less reliable.
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phlawx (Who am I?)
1 month ago
I don’t think they’ll hate it for long.. with the open-ended expandability of applications and an interface years ahead of most other phones, I think it is only a matter of time before it is embraced in Japan as it has been here (U.S.) so far.
Anyhow, thanks for the article, I came across this as I am trying to figure out how to use my 3g phone in Japan this coming September for a 3 week trip.