Japan Mobile Market Myths from Past and Present

The recent guest article, Mobile Music Best Practices from Japan and Korea, has resulted in some interesting comments on the web. It seems that the long- wrong-held belief about Japan’s mobile success story is still being attributed to the “There are relatively few people in Japan with a home-based Internet connection, making the mobile Internet more attractive” syndrome. However, it’s clear according to the ITU that Japan’s Internet and PC adoption rates have been much the same as, or even better than, the adoption rates in European countries such as France, Germany and the UK since at least 2001. Another comment we saw regarding the Chaku-uta Full song downloads explained in the article said “it seems to me it may be being marketed (and more importantly used) more as a next-generation ring-tone service than as a true music service”.

This is incorrect. Today in Japan, marketing to encourage customers to upgrade and listen to full-track music on their new mobile devices is everywhere; in print, outdoor and on television commercials, we are seeing massive “i-pod-meets-mobile-phone” promotions. Hence the stereo headphones and J-pop artists making regular appearances to help push the product. Sure, people can use full songs as ring-tones as well (that’s a bonus), but that is not how Chaku-uta Full is be marketed or — more importantly — being used. (And you don’t have to take our word for it. Visit KDDI’s Ad Index site and surf around to watch their current selection of TV commercials.)

WWJ subscribers login for more cool links and a quick overview of another interesting mobile-music service model coming out of Korea.