Image by Osada Steve.
I read this Bloomberg article with great interest: it’s full of all kinds of interesting tidbits. For instance, the numbers on porn consumption and production in Japan. Compare them to American stats, and we look way, way less pornified than they do. Because if the self-disclosed (and oft-cited) statistics from the US porn industry are to be believed, we produce around 12,000 titles a year. (And that’s looking at the dying model of “porn titles.”) According to this article, Japan generated 19,000 titles last year. Another great tidbit — “Global revenue from pornography on mobile devices will more than double to $4.9 billion in the five years to 2013, while music sales will grow by about a third, said Juniper, which provides global research on the telecommunication industry and includes Finland’s Nokia Oyj, the world’s largest maker of mobile phones, Apple and Microsoft Corp. among its clients.” And that 91 million Japanese surf the Internet from their phones. (That’s a really good reason to get my blog’s template more phone-friendly ASAP.) Here’s a snip from Porn Downloads Strain Japan Phone Network, Prompt DoCoMo Curbs:
Takeshi says he pays 6,300 yen ($66) a month to NTT DoCoMo Inc. for unlimited Internet access, allowing him to download adult movies on his mobile phone.
“A mobile is far handier than a computer for Internet access — I seldom use a PC outside the office,” said Tokyo travel agent Takeshi, 32, who declined to give his surname.
Takeshi and other pornography fans are feeding a surge in demand for movie downloads in Japan, home to the world’s first third-generation wireless network. While profiting from the traffic, Tokyo-based mobile carriers DoCoMo and KDDI Corp. say they’ve been forced to impose limits on the heaviest users as the $74 billion network feels the strain.
“When you have unlimited data, you’re going to have an issue with capacity — it’s an issue that’s been waiting to happen,” said Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research Ltd. “It wouldn’t surprise me that it happens in Japan first because they’ve had 3G for so much longer.”
Softbank Corp., the third-largest network and the Japanese operator of Apple Inc.’s iPhone service, said it is also considering restrictions on users with unlimited data plans.
While telecommunications companies say privacy laws prevent them from seeing what customers download, Japan’s top two pornography providers, Hokuto and Soft on Demand Co., said sales to mobile phone users are driving revenue growth.
Growing Traffic
“Pornography will eventually open a debate about how carriers should modify their business model as data traffic swells,” said Yusuke Tsunoda, a telecommunications analyst at Tokai Tokyo Securities Co. “It may prompt even tighter access restrictions.” (…read more, bloomberg.com)
Aside: You all know how much I love Tokyo Undressed (tokyoundressed.blogspot.com).
