How Far Ahead Is Japan?

Russell Beattie came across an interesting survey of Japanese mobile users (the survey can be checked out here, very interesting) which showed that almost three quarters of Japanese mobile users access sites “about every day”. That goes up to 85.7% for those on unlimited data plans and down to 57.5% for those who pay by the meg… but even that lower figure is far above anything in the western world. Which led Russ to ask the question: “How far ahead is Japanese Mobile Web use from US, Europe and other parts of Asia?” I assume he’s not refering to South Korea here…
I suspect that levels of Japanese mobile internet usage have been high for a few years now…maybe not as high as they are now, but high enough to get the collective mouths of other telco execs watering.
Russell posits that the US is 18 months way from that sort of usage (so about 42 months behind the Japanese) and Europe is about two years away “because of carriers’ resistance to unlimited data plans”.
Personally, I think this sort of off-portal is further away than Russell’s estimates, I think having 50% of users accessing those sites by that time would be a fantastic result. I’d put it at four or five years from now. Mobile content — that is, from carrier portals and subscription/messaging based services will be a lot more popular, of course.
I also think Europe will reach those levels before the US, since Europeans have consistently shown a greater interest in mobile content and mobile internet than Americans.
Feel free to add your thoughts below…

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