Skip to main content

24 Million People in Japan Now Own a Smartphone

Japan is considered by many analysts to be one of the leading global markets for assessing new mobile communications trends. Most of the prior advanced applications for mobile phones, such as NFC payments, were pioneered and mainstreamed in this region.

comScore recently reported key trends in the Japan mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending June 2012. The study surveyed more than 4,000 Japanese mobile subscribers.

The Google Android platform accounted for the majority of the smartphone market at 64.1 percent, followed by Apple iOS with 32.3 percent of the market.

During this reporting period, 102.7 million people age 13 and older used mobile devices in Japan (feature phone and smartphone devices).

Device manufacturer Sharp ranked as the top OEM with 22.6 percent of Japanese mobile subscribers, followed by Panasonic with 13.6 percent share. Fujitsu captured the 3rd place ranking with 11.8 percent of mobile subscribers, followed by NEC at 8.9 percent and Sony at 7.9 percent to round out the top five.

More than 24 million people in Japan owned smartphones during the three months ending in June, representing 23.5 percent of the entire mobile population. Smartphone adoption has increased rapidly in 2012, growing 43 percent versus the end of 2011.

Android’s share of the smartphone market reached 64.1 percent (up 1.9 percentage points versus March), while Apple ranked second with 32.3 percent of the smartphone market, followed by Microsoft, which accounted for 3.2 percent share in June 2012.

Analysis of selected activities consumers performed on their mobile phones found that 62.8 million users took photos with their phone, representing 61.1 percent of all mobile phone users.

Japanese mobile owners were more likely to use an application (54.7 percent) than a mobile browser (50.8 percent), while 46.9 percent sent a text message to another phone during the month. 1 in 3 mobile users accessed weather information on their phone, while 29.9 percent accessed search during June.

Popular posts from this blog

Rise of Software-Defined LEO Satellites

From my vantage point, few areas are evolving as rapidly and with such profound implications as the space sector. For decades, satellites were essentially fixed hardware – powerful, expensive, but ultimately immutable once launched. That paradigm is undergoing a transition driven by Software-Defined Satellites (SDS). A recent market study by ABI Research underscores this transition, painting a picture of technological advancement and a fundamental reshaping of global connectivity, security, and national interests. LEO SDS Market Development The core concept behind SDS is deceptively simple yet revolutionary: decouple the satellite's capabilities from its physical hardware. Instead of launching a satellite designed for a single, fixed purpose (like broadcasting specific frequencies to a specific region), SDS allows operators to modify, upgrade, and reconfigure a satellite's functions after it's in orbit, primarily through software updates. The ABI Research report highlights ...