Japan Lags in Smartphone Adoption, But Still Leads Asia in Mobile Internet Usage [REPORT]

Mobile phone event for Japanese carrier Docomo

Nielsen has some interesting figures about smartphone adoption and usage in Asia in its recent Smartphone Insights Study. Perhaps most interesting is the breakdown of smartphones versus feature phones across the Asia region.

As you can see in the chart below, Singaporean smartphone ownership is highest in Asia as 72 percent own a smartphone in that country. It is followed by Korea, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Note that in Japan, feature phones are still dominant, although the tide is turning, as it is in many other regions.

But it’s interesting to note that while Japan still lags behind in smartphone ownership, it still leads all regions in mobile internet usage, as 86 percent say they’ve used internet on their mobile in the past 30 days. That’s good enough to top second-place Korea at 80 percent, and Hong Kong at 76 percent.

The report also notes that increased smartphone adoption in Asia is resulting in a surge in activity for location-based services. This is most evident in Korea and Japan with 59 percent and 56 percent of smartphones users respectively using some kind of LBS. The managing director of Nielsen’s Telecom Industry Group in APMEA region, Vishal Bali, explained:

Although currently both location-based and location-aware services are being primarily utilized by smartphone users in mature markets such as Korea, Japan, Singapore and China, other markets in Asia such as Indonesia and Malaysia where currently the usage is more focused on social networking and search will be quick to catch up as availability of these services improves.

[Via Asia Media Journal]