PC Use Among Japanese Plummets

Yahoo!Finance reported earlier last month that personal computer use among Japanese has fallen. From the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2007, shipments of PCs to Japan fell 6.8 percent. And in the second quarter of 2007, desktop shipments fell 4.8 percent and laptop shipments fell 3.1 percent.

Of course, I can barely tap out a coherent text message on my utterly un-enhanced cell, whereas my Japanese counterparts have been expertly utilizing mobile phones, handheld consoles and pocket-size communicators for years. Not to knock the iPhone, which is beautiful and impressive, but in general, Japanese tech products are more advanced than American ones. Besides instant messaging, email, camera, TV and film downloads, internet, GPS navigation, video games, MP3 players and day planners (deep breath!), some Japanese phones also come with “crime prevention buzzers” or embedded wallet function, which allow people to swipe their phones like cash cards at the subway station or grocery store. (For more on that, see our E-Cash post from August.)

Another popular function of Japanese phones is scanning QR Codes, which appear in magazines, stores, product boxes and posters. They look like square bar codes but actually contain a wealth of information like URLs, addresses, and more. To the naked eye they look like gibberish, but phones read and translate them on the go for later use.

No wonder desktop computers seem cumbersome in comparison. What does this mean for the PC market in Japan?

Well, nobody’s throwing their laptops out the window; they’re simply not upgrading them, preferring instead to spend money on other gadgets like new flat-screen TVs or the latest game consoles.

Sarah S.

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