Consumers in Japan are OK with phones’ design but demand more functionality

Another market research firm iShare conducted an online survey of 476 respondents to find out about their level of satisfaction with current mobile phones. Interestingly, more end-users are dissatisfied with phone capabilities rather than with the design. The summary of the survey results follows below:

• 38.9% of respondents stated they are dissatisfied with the functionality of their phones; by carrier breakdown, 40.6% were not pleased with au, followed by Softbank (36.1%) and DoCoMo (35.9%)
• 40% of respondents dissatisfied with au stated bad response of keys, while Softbank’s users are not happy with small screens and DoCoMo’s phones are claimed to be slow
• Insufficient battery life was a common complain among all carriers
• 18.1% of respondents didn’t like their phones’ design; by carrier breakdown, DoCoMo (21.1%), au (16.7%), Softbank (13.9%)
• DoCoMo was blamed for buttons on its phones to be difficult to press, while au’s clamshells provide a challenge of opening them with one hand and Softbank’s phones look alike
• Regardless of carrier, users complained about smartphones being big and heavy

Source: iShare