Anybody got real numbers on iPhone sales in Japan?

Uncertainty held forth even before Apple and SoftBank Mobile launched the 3G in Japan on July 11, 2008. An initial survey by iShare reported in June that only 9% of respondents wanted to buy an iPhone – though painting a 9% purchase rate for a single model of phone as disappointing is arguably odd. Yet the survey has to be discounted either way, as it targeted a small sample size and took place before Apple had even announced the 3G. 

• "Study suggests most of Japan not bonkers over iPhone"

A subsequent larger survey by popular pricing site Kakaku.com showed different results: as many as half of respondents eager to consider an iPhone, with huge numbers willing to jump ship from their current carrier to SoftBank just for some of that touch screen goodness. 

• Japanese iPhone survey indicates massive demand - Part I
• Japanese iPhone survey indicates massive demand - Part II

That survey pointed to a warm reception for Apple's new baby. Yet actual sales are all that matter. How's that going for the 3G? read more »

Consumers' desire for lower-cost computing affects software marketing as well. Following up on a couple news items presented earlier:

In September, JustSystems began offering its JPY8000 ATOK Japanese input system for PCs as a JPY300/month software service. The company reports that the low monthly cost is already a hit. Or so JustSystems says; no actual numbers have been announced yet, other than a goal of 30,000 users by September 2009. However, early data does show that 70% of the new service's users are new to ATOK, and are younger than the packaged verson's user base as well, suggesting that software-as-service taps into a young base that's put off by the high price of packaged software.
More info (Japanese): http://www.justsystems.com/jp/products/atok_teigaku/
English: http://www.tekronomicon.com/gadget/2008/09/atok

Next up, SourceNext's switch from CD-ROMs to USB drives to deliver packaged software is also a hit. The company expected to move 1 million units of its "U-Memo" series of consumer titles on USB drives within the first year. The results so far? 650,000 packages - after only one month! SourceNext attributes the popularity to the rapid growth of mini notebook computers, which typically don't have CD-ROM drives. Needless to say, the company is rushing to place more games, utilities, and other titles into the U-Memo lineup.
U-Memo info (Japanese): http://www.sourcenext.com/titles/usb/?i=img_usb
English:
http://www.tekronomicon.com/gadget/2008/09/sourcenext
Netbooks in Japan (English):
http://www.tekronomicon.com/gadget/2008/10/netbooks

Compact digital cameras ("kondeji") have long graduated from a two-way choice of colors (silver or black). With a wide palette of colors available, what hues do Japanese buyers prefer?

Business Computing News ran that question through its database of retail data, looking at all available manufacturers' kondeji sales data for the year ending in September. Not surprisingly, silver and black still rule the roost, at about 41% and 19% of units, respectively. But those colors may be coasting on tradition; BCN found that pink and gold, heavily marketed toward females, rose steeply over the year to a respective 14% and 7% of unit sales.  

Models like the Panasonic DMC-FX37-P, Casio EX-Z300PK, and Olympus mu 1060(PNK) snap up big portions of the pink market, while products like the Casio EX-Z100GD, Canon IXYD920IS(GL), and Casio EX-Z200GD grab the gold. For the silver, the Olympus FE-320, Canon IXYD25IS(sL), and Olympus mu 1060(SLV) sell the most units. The Canon IXYD25IS(BK), Canon IXYD910IS, and Fujifilm FX-F100FDDB were the favorites of black-camera traditionalists.

Popular for fall 2008, though not yet making the charts, are cameras in natural tones like plum, raspberry, wine red, and brown. Ask BCN next year whether those earthy hues have taken another chunk out of black and silver.

For another look at color preferences, BCN turned its attention to the brightly-hued 4th-generation iPod nanos. From a palette of silver, black, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and pink, what's grabbing Japanese buyers' yen?

Surveying JPY17,800 8GB models and leaving out the special direct-sales "(PRODUCT) RED" model, BCN again hands the crown to black and silver, followed in order by pink, blue, purple, orange, green, and yellow. (Sorry, percentage breakdowns aren't available.) BCN expressed surprise at the win by black, given the iPod's strong association with white. But the lack of a white nano and a love of matte black by male buyers put the non-color on top, says BCN, which also surmises that silver scores high as a surrogate for white and as a match for the look of Apple's computers.

Pink was introduced in the previous generation of nanos, and, ranking high with female buyers then, has been carried over to the new line. Blue does well with color aficionados of both genders. Purple wins among the remaining new colors. Orange does very well at some retailers, not so well at others, says BCN; green shows hope with its "eco" associations; and yellow, while bringing up the rear, still ranked a very impressive #33 among 684 audio player models tracked by BCN.

Speaking of other audio players (and going off the color topic), one often hears the meme overseas that Japan's electronics market is a near-impenetrable fortress from the viewpoint of foreign manufacturers, who are lucky to sell even a few scant units in Japan. The iPod is one of many examples showing that to be untrue. In BCN's tracking of retail audio player sales during the week of October 13-19, individual iPod models (broken down by color and memory size) took the top 14 sales ranks, with the Toshiba Gigabeat T401S Black finally breaking the i-monotony at #15. Then it's mostly more iPods again for a while. The same for the month of September: iPods on top, that Toshiba at #12, and then another run of iPods.

Don't listen to the naysayers, foreign manufacturers: bring a good product, and the Japanese electronics market can be yours.

More info (Japanese):
http://bcnranking.jp/news/0810/081020_12140.html
http://bcnranking.jp/news/0810/081015_12142.html

What's this term "netbook" that the kids have been throwing about lately? It's a really small notebook PC - a sub-notebook, if you will. But more specifically, netbooks target those users that just want a machine for core uses - mainly browsing, email, and word processing - and want the lightest, cheapest notebook that'll handle those tasks. While there have long been wee devices in the sub-notebook category (including the palm-sized Toshiba Libretto in 1996), the Eee from Taiwan-based ASUSTek Computer jump-started the idea of netbooks as really low-cost machines when it shipped in 2007 for about US$350.

Low price is driving notebook sales in Japan as well, says Business Computer News (BCN). At retailers throughout the nation in September, models costing JPY100,000 and lower (roughly sub-$1000) made up 52% of notebook computer sales by number of units. Notebooks costing JPY60,000 or less - generally machines described as netbooks - alone accounted for 20% of notebook units sold.  

Japan Acer, the local branch of Taiwan's Acer Computer, took the lion's share (54%) of that sub-JPY60,000 market, on the strength of the Aspire One model introduced just a month earlier in August. ASUSTek came in second, with 37% of unit sales in the category (down from 53% in August). Together, the two models have scooped up over 90% of the fast-growing category, leaving Japanese makers like Toshiba scrambling to catch up.

Revisiting the data to look at size instead of price, BCN reports that notebooks with screens 10 inches or smaller accounted for 24% of notebook unit sales, up from 20% in August. Acer and ASUS again have most of the sales, with Hewlett Packard Japan, Kohjinsha, and MSI fighting for the scraps.

Changing topics, what OS are Japan's buyers getting with their notebooks? The winners are Windows Vista with 72%, Windows XP with 26% (up from 22% in August) and Mac OS X at 2.4%. On the desktop side, those numbers are Vista 86%, XP 4%, and OS X 9%. Or across both categories: Vista 75%, XP 21%, OS X 4%.

Some good economic news: Japan's retail PC unit sales (desktop and notebook) in September were up 23% over the year previous; August sales were up 28% year-on-year. Industry watchers see this as a sign of strength in the PC market, aided by many new product intros this summer and the strength of that netbook market.

As a final note, BCN adds that Mac sales had been showing double-digit year-on-year monthly growth for 13 months straight, including a huge 37% leap in August. But sales were up only 0.1% year-on-year in September, possibly due to rumors over upcoming new products. (In all cases, though, take BCN's Mac data with salt; its numbers comes from POS data at 25 retail chains in Japan, a list which doesn't include the Apple Store.)

More info (Japanese):
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2008/1006/netbook.htm

Small but bigger: Toshiba announced the world's first 240GB internal hard drive in 1.8-inch format, the MK2431GAH. That's a quarter terabyte, in the ultra-compact size used by subnotebooks and audio players. Production begins from late September. Meanwhile, price watchers in Japan report that the regular retail price of a 3.5-inch (desktop) 1TB internal hard drive, such as the SAMSUNG HD103UI, is now dipping below the JPY10,000 mark.
1TB drive prices (Japanese):
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/akiba/hotline/20080913/etc_hdd.html

Tokyo-based package software seller SOURCENEXT is leaving disks behind for its line of consumer software titles. From September, its core postcard-printing, homepage creator, and utility software titles will ship on your choice of frumpy CD-ROMs or trendier USB drives, with 30 titles making the move to thumb drive by the end of the year. The sales strategy, dubbed "U-Memo", recognizes that mobile PCs are moving away from optical drives, and that USB drives have become a commodity storage media. Prices will stay the same as CD-ROM versions, and space not taken up by software on the 1-GB "U-Memo" drives can be used for general data storage. That means "U-Memo" offers buyers that same software as the CD-ROM versions, with a thumb drive tossed in. Together with downloads, this looks like a sure end for CD-ROMs as a software delivery method.
http://www.sourcenext.com/titles/usb/?i=img_usb (Japanese)

This sounds good in a world ever-more concerned about energy costs and eletronic waste: Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology (TMD) and Idemitsu Kosan have announced a new small-molecule organic electroluminescent (EL) display panel that reportedly lasts 30 times as long as current TMD screens while sipping a scant 1/10 the electricity. The 2.2-inch QVGA screen for mobile devices uses 100mW of power and lasts up to 60,000 hours, the best specs recorded yet for the category. TMD provided the TFT substrate design technology and element design technology, while Idemitsu chipped in RGB light-emitting materials. The two companies are now cooperating on commercialization plans.

Info: http://www.tmdisplay.com/tm_dsp/press/2008/08-08-20_e.html (English)