Most smartphone users in Japan turn to apps for information about what’s going on in the world?at least for a few minutes a day, according to December research.
According to December polling by Colopl, mobile news apps are popular in Japan: A majority of smartphone users across age and gender lines have downloaded one.
But they’re most popular with the oldest smartphone users. More than 80% of male smartphone users over 50 had downloaded news apps, along with 73.5% of men in their 40s.
Women the same age were more likely than their younger counterparts to have downloaded news apps?but less likely than some of the younger men surveyed.
Still, even among girls and women ages 10 to 19, a majority had downloaded news apps.
Most users did not report spending too much time with such apps on a daily basis, however. On weekdays, a large plurality (48.7%) spent less than 10 minutes with news apps. On weekends, an outright majority (51.0%) spent less than 10 minutes with them.
In Japan, the leading categories of smartphone apps installed focus around communication, with social networking and chat apps coming out on top.
eMarketer estimates that 55.8 million people of all ages will use smartphones in Japan this year, representing 52.4% of all mobile phone users in the country and 44% of the total population.
