Philip H. Sidel (Assistant Professor, International University of Japan)
Since our presentation at the ACCJ, I have been working to further analyze the results of our qualitative research effort comparing Japan and Indonesian mobile phone users. What has been most surprising in this subsequent analysis, is that the actual level of similarity between the images and beliefs that individuals have regarding the mobile platform appears to be nearly 100% similar (as opposed to the 70% similarity that we initially reported). Although this may sound shocking at first, especially when talking about such unique cultures as Japan and Indonesia, although the images and beliefs are extremely similar, the emphasis between these markets is far different.
For example, although both Indonesian and Japanese mobile consumers talk about the ability to communicate and obtain valuable information via the MobileNet, the Indonesian respondents placed far more emphasis on the actual information such as News, Travel and Financial information while the Japanese respondents focused their attention not on the actual information itself, but instead the enhanced communication capabilities that resulted from this information. We have found a number of other interesting differences in emphasis between these two markets, and are now in the process of completing our report on these findings.
We will post these results on our Mobile Consumer Behavior website, http://www.mocobe.com, and make a formal announcement on the Glocom Platform site as well.
Any questions or comments on our research are always greatly appreciated. Please feel free to contact me directly at psidel@iuj.ac.jp.
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