“According to a survey by iSHARE, 91.0% of Japanese mobile phone users are not planning to purchase Apple Inc’s ‘iPhone’ mobile phone,” Yukiko Kanoh reports for Tech-On.
“This research was conducted in the wake of the announcement by SoftBank Mobile Corp that it will release the iPhone in Japan,” Kanoh reports. “Targeting Internet users aged primarily 20 to 49, iSHARE asked questions about their intention to purchase an iPhone, as well as other questions and received 402 responses over the Internet.”
Kanoh reports, “The survey had been conducted from June 5 to 6, 2008, before pricing [and features] for an iPhone handset was announced.”
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, so the survey is virtually useless. Thanks.
Kanoh continues, “Asked if they have a plan to purchase an iPhone, 36 respondents (8.9%) said “I am planning to purchase one.” Nearly half of these 36 respondents were SoftBank Mobile users, iSHARE said.”
MacDailyNews Take: Japan’s population is 127.3 million. Let’s take a wild guess that, oh, 30% of Japan’s population is between the ages of 20-49. That would be 38.19 million. 8.9% of that is 3.4 million iPhones sold to Japanese buyers who had no idea of the feature-set or pricing. In other words: 34% of Apple’s total iPhone unit sales goal for 2008 (10 million). Sight unseen. Fun with statistics. This bodes very well for Apple when you break it down, doesn’t it?
There’s more in the full article, in which we find that many Japanese people really, really, really love replaceable batteries, here.
MacDailyNews Note: We really couldn’t find out much information about what iSHARE even is, much less what their methodology was for the survey. If anyone has more info let us know.
For another viewpoint, WhatJapanThinks.com reports, “On the 13th of June 2008 330 mobile phone-using members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in private industry completed a members-only internet-based questionnaire.”
For the question, “SoftBank customers: will you upgrade your current phone to an iPhone?” (Sample size=56, SoftBank customers), 25% said they would or maybe would upgrade to iPhone.
More questions and answers here.
[UPDATE: 8:27pm EDT: Added WhatJapanThinks.com article snippet and link.]