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September 9, 2009Yahoo Japan’s new keyword assist could change popular keywords
September 15, 2009Japan’s leading product review and pricing site, Kakaku.com, announced the results of their Smartphone survey done in Japan. (6,149 samples, Male:88.4% / Female:11.6%)
The report shows that more than 20% have Smartphone, and more than 25% of people under 39 have Smartphone. I was surprised to see that more than 28% of teens responded that they had Smartphone. Note that 14.5% of teens said that they didn’t have any cell phones.
![Smartphone users in Japan Smartphone users in Japan](https://ajpr.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/033-q1-1.gif)
Smartphone users in Japan
In Japan, you cannot keep the same number if you switch the carrier, and that’s probably why 11.4% of Smartphone users also have a regular cell phone.
The carrier data by the service providers shows that Softbank has the biggest Smartphone market share (61.5%) followed by Willcom (15.4%) and NTT do.co.mo (14.8%). Kakaku.com points out that NTT docomo just entered the Smartphone business in late 2008, and already became the 3rd largest provider. 55% of Smartphone users responded that they had either iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, both are provided by Softbank.
![Smartphones Smartphones popularity in Japan](https://ajpr.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/033-q2-2.gif)
Smartphones popularity in Japan
More than 66% said that they purchased Smartphone to view PC version of websites. (You typically view mobile version of website such as i-mode site from cell phone in Japan.) Having access to variety of applications and to have a large sized monitor are also the top reasons why they purchased Smartphone.
It’s exciting to see the Smartphone gaining the market share in Japan as the advertisers and the marketers can do so much more with Smartphones than with regular cell phones.