Japanese ebooks on mobile handsets
December 10th, 2007 | by Jose Miguel Cansado |
TechCrunch reported a few days ago the success of “mobile phone ebooks” in Japan. See article
I often fly to Tokyo for work. People there commute mainly on train. Japan has the best railway system in the world. Trains are so punctual you can actually use them to set your watch time.
It is considered impolite - and it is forbidden- to speak on the phone in trains, buses or restaurants. Yet, around 80% of the people in a wagon are using their clam shell phones, mainly for email. SMS is not common and it is replaced by email, which Japanese access more often on their handsets than on PC.
With so much time spent in commuting, the mobile phone becomes a Personal Entertainment device - email, imode, games, music, and BOOKS as reported by TC!!.
KDDI, second mobile operator, sells millions of songs every month directly to the phones of their customers, being the main competitor to iTunes in Japan.
You can also find people in the train watching TV on their phones, not only unicast, but broadcast too. Technicians installing TV at home, will use the TV in their handsets to check channel reception.
In summary, Japan is very special in their habits. Successful concepts in Japan, may not be exportable. e.g. imode did not quite succeed overseas.
