In Japan, smartphones surpass feature phones among newly acquired devices for first time ever

TOKYO, JAPAN: comScore Inc. released data from the comScore MobiLens service, reporting key trends in the Japan mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending February 2012.

The study surveyed more than 4,000 Japanese mobile subscribers and found Sharp to be the top mobile handset manufacturer overall with 23.5 percent market share. Google's Android platform accounted for the majority of the smartphone market at 61.4 percent, followed by Apple with 34.2 percent of the market.

"Smartphones surpassed feature phones as the most acquired device type in February 2012, signaling an important shift in Japan's mobile market," said Daizo Nishitani, VP of comScore Japan KK. "The rise in smartphone adoption opens the door to tremendous opportunity for publishers and advertisers to expand their reach and increase engagement with key consumer segments through this channel. Japanese mobile phone users were already highly engaged with their devices, but with the added functionality and higher levels of mobile media consumption we should expect to see significant changes in behavior among the Japanese mobile population in 2012."

Sharp accounts for 1 in 4 mobile devices in Japan
For the three-month average period ending in February, 101.7 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 23.5 percent of Japanese mobile subscribers, followed by Panasonic with 13.8 percent share. Fujitsu captured the #3 ranking in February with 11.8 percent of mobile subscribers, followed by NEC at 9.7 percent and Sony at 7.5 percent to round out the top five.

Apple, which ranked as the 8th largest OEM in Japan with 6.5 percent market share, experienced the strongest gain among device manufacturers increasing 1.6 percentage points since November 2011.

More than 19.3 million people in Japan owned smartphones during the three months ending in February, up 28 percent versus November. Android's share of the smartphone market reached 61.4 percent, while Apple ranked second with 34.2 percent of the smartphone market (up 1.3 percentage points versus November 2011), followed by Microsoft, which accounted for 3.9 percent in February 2012.

Mobile content usage
Analysis of selected activities consumers performed on their mobile phones found that 57.6 million users accessed email on their phone, representing more than half of all mobile phone users. Japanese mobile owners were more likely to use an application (55.4 percent) than a mobile browser (52.4 percent), while 45.4 percent sent a text message to another phone during the month. Nearly 1 in 5 mobile users accessed social networking or blog sites on their phone, while slightly less (18.8 percent) watched TV or video.