“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.]
Freddy: Don’t you mean PorcineDailyNews? There’s a lead story about Kevin Bacon. Unfortunately, it’s a real boar.
To Slowly But Surely:
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(And I would be skeptical if a Prophet didn’t get it.)
Just wait until all the people in the train SEE ME USING my iPhone. Then they will reconsider getting one too.
95% of Americans won´t buy Apple computers.
And I am sure that more than 91% of Americans aren´t buying iPhones.
In Germany, they have only sold 100,000 iPhones in a population of 82,000,000.
That is about 99.99% of the population not wanting an iPhone.
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Why is this news?
It’s the keypad. SMS is much more popular outside of the U.S.
just my $0.02
Scott in Japan got his wish that SoftBank would be the carrier here, and not DoCoMo, as had been widely predicted. Although I didn’t much care which company would get the rights, I’m happy that somebody did. As soon as the SoftBank iPhone is in my hands, I will not miss my DoCoMo phone for even one second. I’ve been practicing up for the past six months on my iPod Touch.
I only hope that SoftBank continues its aggressive pricing policy, which has made it the up-and-comer after buying out the languishing J-Phone business from Vodaphone.
Japan’s phones have been way ahead of those in the US for a long time. No wonder they don’t want to buy one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cell_phone_culture