Figure 1-1-3-3 Smartphone ownership

(Source) "2014 Communications Usage Trend Survey," (Household Edition) MIC

## (3) Arrival and growth of smartphones

The arrival of the smartphone, typified by Apple’s iPhone in 2007, further advanced the convergence of communications and computers that had been ongoing since 1995. Smartphone-related fields have been expanding day by day, such that businesses on the Internet started developing around the smartphone.

Results from the 2014 Communications Usage Trend Survey show that smartphones are owned in more than 64 percent of all households. Checking smartphone ownership by the age of the head of the household finds that the younger the head of the household, the higher the ownership rate: 94.5 percent among heads of households in their 20s, 92.4 percent among those in their 30s, and over 70 percent among those in their 40s and 50s. Even the smartphone ownership among seniors 60 and older approaches 40 percent. From this, we can surmise that citizens of all ages have embraced smartphones and that smartphones have largely proliferated society (Figure 1-1-3-3).

## (4) Recap and future issues

Thanks to aggressive network investments, primarily by private carriers, over the last 30 years from the telecommunications liberalization in 1985 to today in 2015, broadband is available not only in the major urban areas but also in virtually all areas of Japan. Through these advances in infrastructure, the role of Japan's ICT has also transformed from a conventional communication tool to a new management resource that generates, accumulates, and processes information to create added value.

On the other hand, with the reorganization of the telecommunication industry starting in the second period, telecommunications carriers have today consolidated, for all practical intent, into a three-group system consisting of the NTT Group, the KDDI Group, and the Softbank Group. Therefore, it is more important than ever to sustain fair market conditions so that users are free to choose the devices, services, and price plans that suit their needs and so that new services are created while keeping watch over the formation of groups and oligopolies among carriers. Furthermore, we anticipate that maintaining safe and secure usage environments as ICT advances will also increase in importance.

And whereas previous policies have been oriented toward ubiquitous ICT, with continued progress in the ICT field, future policies will start venturing into the IoT world. Looking toward the future in 2030 and beyond, as described later, putting into practice what has been studied in the application area will be increasingly important. And a key question for ICT will be how to implement in networks devices that embody the added value created through the processing and analysis of information that has been stored or distributed on the Internet.

## Section 2 30 Years Since Telecommunications Liberalization: Overview from a Data Perspective

In this section, we provide a general overview, from a quantitative data perspective, of the entire ICT industry's growth from 1985's the telecommunications liberalization to the present time and verify where we have arrived after these 30 years.

### 1. Expansion of the ICT market and its contribution to economic growth

## (1) Sales by telecommunications carriers

At the time of the telecommunications liberalization in 1985, Japan had only two telecommunications carriers, NTT and KDD, which had combined sales of 5.3570 trillion yen. In comparison, the combined sales of the leading domestic telecommunication carriers in 2013 were 22.4870 trillion yen, a jump of over 400 percent. These figures demonstrate that the overall market for telecommunications services has expanded greatly due to vigorous competition among carriers (Figure 1-2-1-1).