MMD Labo provides English Service!!

MMD Labo, one of the largest mobile market research firm in Japan has announced that they are providing English service for their research reports.

You can check out one sample of their English report here.

Online Banking Services Leads the Financial Service Apps in Japan

Online Banking services are the most popular online financial services in Japan, according to MMD Labo's latest research on Mobile Financial Services.

Over 40% of users have used Online Banking services while mobile payment services only 9.5% and cryptocurrency services only 3.5%. Men are using financial services more aggressively than women except for the usage of household account book apps.

The top 3 online banking services are;
1. Rakuten Bank - 38%
2. Yucho (postal savings) Direct - 30%
3. MUFG Bank - 27%



Details in Japanese; MMD Labo Mobile Financial Services Survey Aug. 2018

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

76% of Feature Phone Users in Japan Is Not Considering to Shift to Smartphones

According to MMD Labo's Feature Phone user survey, 76% of users still want to keep using feature phones and has no intent to change to smartphones. There are various reasons behind this but one of the reason and a significant one is that they think smartphones are expensive. The ideal price range for feature phone users seems to be ¥1,001~¥2,000 and 37.5% of users answered so.

However, 40% of the users answered they will consider buying a smartphone once the 3G service ends.

Details in Japanese; MMD Labo Feature Phone user survey Jun. 2018

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

18% of Japanese Still Using Feature Phones

According to the latest Mobile Device Share Survey released by MMD Labo, 18.1% of mobile phone users in Japan are still using feature phones.

On the other hand, the smartphone OS usage ratio in Japan has a relatively high iOS ratio comparing to other western countries. Android 40% against iOS 35.2% and others 0.4% out of the entire mobile phone users which means iOS is about 47% of the total smartphone users.

The iOS usage is particularly high in young and women users in Japan;
Male 10's - 63.5%
Male 20's - 49.1%
Female 10's - 72.5%
Female 20's - 62.7%
Female 30's - 48.4% (Male 40%)
Female 50's - 45.1% (Male 42%)



Details in Japanese; MMD Labo 2018 Aug. Mobile Device Share Survey

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

Recruiters Chose University of Tsukuba as Best University - research by Nikkei HR & Nikkei

Nikkei and Nikkei HR asked recruiters of public companies and leading companies of non-public companies the impression of universities from the new grads they have hired in the past. University of Tsukuba came in top from 17th previous year in the overall ranking. On the other hand, due to high recruiting demand from companies, many of them are seeking to hire from local universities and Hirosaki University came in 1st for "aggressively hiring" category.

University of Tsukuba was voted as all-arounder coming in high ranks for all 4 areas - 4th in "taking action", 2nd in "interpersonal skills", 5th in "intelligence and knowledge" and 3rd in "creativity". The University has been keeping their education cross-sectional in terms of their curriculum and staying away from specializing in a certain area. On top of this culture, they started a new degree program called "Tsukuba Standard" from 2007 where students can grow their international compatibility. Corporate recruiting staffs says creating this unique educational environment helped Tsukuba's student improve their all-arounder skill-set.


Kyoto University came in 2nd place in the overall ranking, followed by Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology as 3rd and Osaka University as 4th.Within the top 10 ranking, only Waseda (8th) and Keio (9th) came in from private universities and all others were National Universities.

Details in Japanese; Nikkei article - 2018 university ranking by recruiters

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.