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iPod Takes Japan by Storm

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the extremely-well-designed-storm dept.

conq writes "BusinessWeek reports on the soaring popularity of the iPod in Japan. From the article: 'iPod mania is alive and well in Japan -- one of the most competitive consumer-electronics markets on the planet. Despite an array of well-entrenched Japanese rivals, such as Sony and Matsushita, the iPod had cornered 51.3% of the digital-music player market as of the end of 2005, up from about 32% in 2004, according to research firm BCN. Sony was a distant second with 16.2%, while Panasonic grabbed just 8.2% of the market.'"

4 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. I was in Japan last week ... by Stan+Chesnutt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... and I saw a LOT of people wearing iPods in the trains, walking on the streets, and at the Narita airport. I talked with a few people about the iPod, and most were using them for Japanese pop music ripped from CDs: I did not meet anyone who had used the iTunes store.

    Further, most of the models I saw were the video iPod or the Nano. Very few older photo iPods, and none of the earlier generations.

    I'd say that the iPod was the dominant music player that I saw (although there were a few portable CD players)

    1. Re:I was in Japan last week ... by gbrandt · · Score: 4, Interesting

      When I was in Japan I noticed quite a few companies selling white ear-pods in Akahabara. The iPod is such a fad item that people that have other devices will buy the white ear-pods to make it LOOK like they have an iPod.

      Its all about perception in Japan.

      Gregor

  2. Re:I'm confused by servognome · · Score: 3, Interesting

    XBox-Fanboys constantly claim that these evil Japanese racists only buy Japanese products.
    How is that possible?

    Japanese do exhibit nationalistic pride (it's not racism). It's similar to how many Americans will only buy American cars and trucks.

    iPod style manages overcome the bias, because it is more stylish (which is important to teenagers) than other products. It's cool to own [and wear] an iPod so whether or not it was made in Japan doesn't matter.
    X-box does not share such a cool factor, it's an equivalent to PS2, so nationalism becomes the deciding factor.

    --
    D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
  3. Re:I guess I still don't get it by mofomojo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not about the general features, all massive storage media players have these, it's about the small things.

    A lot of companies try to improve a product by %100 by adding one new feature, but the iPod improves 100 of the existing features by %1.

    This is what makes it so good, the small things, and so forth. Plus the simplistic design and so on. Buttons are annoying to use and hard on fingers, and more importantly hard to use in pockets. So, the add the click wheel where all you have to do is turn it a little bit to do whatever it will do.

    It's the small things, the amount of effort put into perfecting these devices and the ease of use on the UI that makes them so great.

    It's a good product, and on top of that, iPods are a recognizable name so they are consumers' first choice. Just like how the WalkMans were popular in the '80s, iPods have taken that place.