Japan - shopping by cellphone booming - 47% jump

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A Japanese survey made by Nihon Keizai Shimbun and reported in Finance Asia shows that cellular phone users are fast becoming important customers for online merchants.

The study shows that sales by internet stores via cell phone exhibited a 46.6% surge on the year in fiscal 2004. Analyzed by the survey were a total of 231 retailers whose total sales climbed 5.1% to 1.6 trillion yen ($13.7 billion).

Nearly 20% of these sales were attributed to those made online, with about 10% attributed to people using cell phone Internet access.

Among these shoppers, the top-selling items were clothing, accessories and perfumes.

The survey shows that accesses to sites posted a 61.4% growth, with sharper growth expected following the launch of digital television broadcasting for cell phones next spring.

This trend speaks to the power of mobile directories and search, and also to the tremendous impact that digital TV and digital radio to mobile will have, a matter sometimes seriously downplayed by naysayers.

It also explains the battles in Japan where in recent times both major internet auction companies - products of the dot-com boom - have attacked the share registries of "established and establishment" TV companies - to gain control of content and digital TV broadcasting and to link it to mcommerce.

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