Four reasons for high mobile data usage uptake in Japan

Wall Street Journal (WSJ) had this lengthy article (note: subscription required) about mobile marketing in Asia. The article pointed out to some cultural differences between West and East that should be well taken into marketers' minds when replicating Japanese mobile marketing campaigns. In a nutshell, the following are key drivers that led to the high uptake of mobile data usage in Japan and that can’t be applied in North America:

• Lack of alternative communication means at home led to the heavy data usage of cellphones for Internet surfing and email. As WSJ put it, “Cellphones were adopted early on in Japan by girls living in cramped households, because they lacked other private communication, such as personal telephones and Internet access”.
• While people in Japan don't mind thumb-typing text messages, that might not be the case with users in North America.
• Japan led Asia's phone-text revolution, largely because of taboo against talking on phones in public there.
• From myself, I’d like to mention another well-known fact that Japan is a heavy train-commuter nation versus car-commuter of North America. During the commute time, Japanese keep themselves occupied with texting, playing games and surfing the Internet via their cellphones, while Americans prefer to drive cars, limiting themselves to voice calling or listening to the radio while driving.