Figure 4-1-1-2 Percentage of users by type of mobile data network

Note: Results for High-speed wireless communications (BWA, WiMAX, etc.), other, and none of the above are not shown.

(Source) "Study Report on the Social Impacts of ICT Advancement," MIC (2014)

### c. Changes in device usage times

Examining the average daily time spent on mobile phones, PCs, tablets, TVs, and other devices shows that TVs and PCs have the longest usage times, in the vicinity of two to three hours per day, in all six countries. The usage times for TVs and PCs are longest in the United States, at close to three hours each, and a similar tendency is seen in the United Kingdom. On the other hand, no major differences were seen among the six countries in “time reading paper newspapers and magazines” and “time reading paper books,” which did not reach 50 minutes on average.

A distinct difference was seen, however, in Japan in the usage times of mobile phones between smartphone owners and non-smartphone owners. The former use mobile phones on average 78 minutes a day—which is on a par with the United States, South Korea, and Singapore—while the latter only 12 minutes, a difference of over one hour. A gap was also seen in PC usage times at home; smartphone owners use PCs on average 115 minutes a day, about 50 minutes less than the 166 minutes of non-owners. This finding indicates that smartphones are gradually replacing PCs as the device of choice.

## (2) Changes in content and service usage

### a. Smartphones and other devices fuel greater use of services

When we examined the use of various content and services on mobile phones and tablets in the six countries, we discovered smartphone owners in Japan had markedly higher usage rates than feature phone owners for all content and service types. This was particularly true for usage rates of "SNS," "Internet shopping / auctions," "chat," "social games," and "watching videos," which were used by less than 20 percent of feature phone owners but were used by between 40 and 60 percent of smartphone owners. This implies that the use of these services, which are seldom used on feature phones, has become commonplace in the mobile marketplace because of smartphones.

Content and service usage on tablets is similar to that on smartphones in all the countries apart from Singapore. The one significant difference is the higher e-book usage rate on tablets than on smartphones in all six countries (Figure 4-1-1-3).

Figure 4-1-1-4 further illustrates the differences in content and service usage between smartphone users and feature phone users in Japan, focusing on SNS, watching videos, and e-commerce (Internet shopping and auctions).

As these results show, smartphone users are more likely to make use of various content and service types. However, when given five options for the “main purpose of using the Internet”—“communication,” “gather information / use content,” “online gaming,” “shopping,” and “other”—21.1 percent of Japanese smartphone users answered “communication,” versus just 6 percent of non-owners, making this the top purpose, followed by “gather information / use content.” This demonstrates that smartphone users put a priority on communication as a purpose of using the Internet.

### b. Changes in service usage frequency

We examined how often users in each country currently use voice calls, email, and SMS communication services on their mobile phone (smartphone or feature phone). One finding in Japan that stood out was that over 90 percent of users use their mobile carrier’s email service, which was far and away the highest percentage among the six countries.

## (i) Changes in the usage frequency of voice calls and SMS services

We focused our attention on possible service migration from SMS and email to chat apps (such as Line), from voice calls to free app calls, and from mobile carriers' email services to Gmail and similar email services. Among free app calls and chat apps, Line leads the market in Japan and has grown its user base, mostly among young people, achieving over 50 million users in April 2014. In most of the other countries as well, one dominant chat app has taken a majority share of the market.

To trace service migration in the area of voice calls, we compared changes in the usage frequency of free app calls versus that of voice calls after a smartphone purchase. In Japan, the percentages of “increased” and “de