Read this article about how “keitai” (Japanese mobile phone) market is affecting personal computer market. Japan is going to be the first developed country in the world where the PC market shrinks. All major traditional personal computer makers such as Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC… are now pretty focused on developing mobile devices.
Japanese kids create there first blog using a keitai, not a computer. They start chatting with their keitai, not with “MSN Messenger”. The second most visited web in Japan, Mixi.jp, has more visitors from keitais than from computers. In fact, Mixi.jp has more visitors from keitais only than Google Japan from computers. There are novelists who are writing full length novels with their keitai, and many people reads those books also with their mobile devices.
And here there is a capture from one of the last games for Docomo keitais.
Capture from Dannychoo’s post about Japanese keitai games
4 replies on “PC market shrinking in Japan”
Most people don’t need a full fledged computer.
But many of us don’t want our gadgets shaped by archaic phone carriers. “Talking on the phone” should have stayed in the 20th century, along with faxing.
Please somebody separate the handheld computer market from phone carriers.
I have to say that this page really give it for us geeks!
http://www.xtremegadgets.net
[…] An interesting note from a blogger in Japan references a story on the shrinking Japanese PC market: [The] “keitai” (Japanese mobile phone) market is affecting personal computer market. Japan is going to be the first developed country in the world where the PC market shrinks. All major traditional personal computer makers such as Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony, Fujitsu, NEC… are now pretty focused on developing mobile devices. […]
[…] If you like manga then Japan is your paradise, manga is cheap here and there are millions of them. If you buy new manga it costs around 400 and 600 Yen, but if you buy used manga volumes then you only have to pay around 100 Yen (1.1$). Even though manga is still popular, the industry is immersed in big crisis and people talks about the 90s as the golden decade for manga and anime. If people read manga while commuting in the old time, now people prefers to use their keitais (mobile phones) to read the latest news or send emails and play with their Nintendo DS or PSP. […]