Telecom Lead Asia: Sharp
is the leading mobile handset manufacturer overall with 23.5 percent market
share in Japan, 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.
According to comScore, 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.
The study surveyed more than 4,000 Japanese mobile
subscribers and found that 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).
“Smartphones surpassed feature phones as the most
acquired device type in February 2012, signaling an important shift in
Japan’s mobile market. 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,”
said Daizo Nishitani, vice president of comScore Japan.
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.
As per the study, 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.
The study found that 57.6 million users accessed email on
their phone, representing more than half of all mobile phone users.
In its latest report on connected device usage in Latin
America,comScore revealed Brazil has the highest
percentage of web traffic coming from tablets at 39.9 percent, while
in Colombia, tablets account for 38.9 percent. Puerto
Rico stands at thirds spot with 34.6 percent of non-computer traffic.
editor@telecomlead.com
