Japanese Handsets - the inside!

I already wrote about how Japanese handsets look like, now let me share the inside. 

Most handsets in Japan are not recognized by the manufacturer but by the operator, this happens because most operators "build" their own handsets, they take the design from the handset manufacturers but all the features and keys are customized for the operator. This is particularly true with NTT Docomo and KDDI, Softbank (previous Vodafone Japan) is not so involved in this process (maybe that is one of the reasons for them to be the 3rd player in the market). So, when a Japanese is going to buy a phone, instead of saying I want the Nokia XX, they say, I want the NTT XX... it might seem a small difference, but it shows the power of the operators in the Japanese market.

So how does the phone looks inside? One thing is that Japanese people like list menus and they like to see everything at once, so most phones have a list menu and most of the features are available at the first glance. Of course, because there are a lot features, they have second and third level menus, but the most common features are available right there on the first level menu. 

For a foreigner like me, the big difference is that the most common features for a Japanese are different then my own. For example I use SMS, Japanese use e-mail, so e-mail is right there... SMS is hidden somewhere always hard to find!

Besides the menu itself, the general usage of the mobile phone is very different, for example, whenever I use a NTT phone, if I call someone and want to redial that number, just pressing the green key doesn't work... for some reason that I still don't understand, the call log is always hard to find, so I tend to give up and just write the number again or go to the contacts address book!

This probably explains why most western handset manufacturers have a small market share in Japan.

Japanese handsets - how they look like...

I am a foreigner living in Japan, and I've been working for jig.jp for almost 1 year now. When I arrived here in Japan about 2 years ago, I didn't really know what I was going to find around Japanese mobile phones, I read the industry was more developed, that applications such as e-mail on the mobile phone were commonly used by everyone, but I had no specific ideas around the handsets itself and how they looked like.... well, I found out that the market is truly unique.

By looking around me I saw that the phone models that I used to see in Europe were not available here. The only Nokias I found were used by foreign people! Also the color of the phones is quite different... in Europe and the US, most phones are black, dark grey, silver, blue... color models are not so popular, but here in Japan most women, but also men, have white, pink, orange, green flashing phones! Also, I would say 85% of the phones are clamshell phones, 14% are slide phones and only 1% are bar phones... (attention this data is based on my eyes and common sense only)!

I managed to buy a clamshell navy blue Samsung phone, and I was happy about it!

Japanese mobile industry has been evolved like the Galapagos Islands, what is needed is diversity

I while ago, I wrote this post on my own japanese blog...

People say Japanese mobile industry has been developed like the Galapagos Islands. I agree.

From the historical perspective, Japan has developed its culture in an original way by disconnection with other countries. Japan is dislocated because of geographic conditions. In addition, Tokugawa government had its policy called, “Sakoku” which is exclusion of foreigners, isolationism, policy of noninvolvement in the affairs of other countries at Edo era. Without having relationships with other part of the world, Japan had developed our originality. In order to create something, it needs time not to be interrupted from external world. Japanese animation culture has been developed in a unique way under this circumstance.

Retrieved from Wikipedia on Aug.27, 2008: Sakoku (Japanese: 鎖国, literally "country in chains" or "lock up of country") was the foreign relations policy of Japan under which no foreigner could enter or Japanese could leave the country on penalty of death. The policy was enacted by the Tokugawa shogunate under Tokugawa Iemitsu through a number of edicts and policies from 1633-1639 and remained in effect until 1853 with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry and the opening of Japan. It was still illegal to leave Japan until the Meiji Restoration (1868).

Japanese mobile industry is also one of the other examples of Japanese originally developed culture. By competing with many handset manufactures, Japanese mobile industry has been developed and made a huge success in an original way. In another example, i-mode which is the first mobile Internet portal developed by NTT docomo contributed to enlarge mobile contents market in Japan. 

If we take a look at the world mobile industry, and the handset manufactures in particular, we have  four giants Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson are holding 78% share of its market. 

What is important is people in Japan? There are users who care about features on mobile phones. There are also users who do not care about features as long as they can use email. It is no meaning to have features which users do not use, even if these features have been developed with huge effort. 

What is needed for diversifying modern society is to be the world which creates “the Galapagos Islands” for anybody."

2008-07-08 10:09