*Nice term of art, garakei
http://0x4e71.lotek.fr/post/119220367188/garakei
garakei
Japan was one of the earliest countries to widely adopt phones that could access the internet. But a funny thing has happened there: sales of smartphones have taken a dive. Instead, Japanese consumers are flocking to older styles of cellphone — like the venerable flip-phone.
According to the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, sales of what have been dubbed “gara-kei,” a catchall term for the style of simple screen-keypad cellphone popular before the iPhone, are rising for the first time in seven years. About half of people with cellphone contracts in Japan use gara-kei, which means “Galapagos phone” — a nod to how they have evolved for a peculiarly Japanese market. The phones can have email and basic internet access, with many using the old-school flip design.
Sales of gara-kei increased 5.7 percent over 2014, with smartphone sales, by contrast, falling for a second straight year. The big question, of course, is why.
[…]
Forbes’ Jake Adelstein, a veteran Japan correspondent, thinks price is part of the story. But he also proposes two other possible explanations. First, Japan has a low birth rate and a large elderly population. Older people might be less likely to use fancy smartphone features as opposed to simple calling and texting, so as the country ages, smartphone use may decline.
[…]
According to Gartner, a leading market research firm, smartphones sales shot up worldwide in 2014. But in December 2014, the firm reported that western Europe was an exception: smartphone sales were down by 5.2 percent, and had declined for three straight quarters. That’s pretty consistent with Adelstein’s theory: if the decline in smartphone use is about aging populations and fatigue with smartphones’ most annoying features, then western Europe is the next logical place to look after Japan.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jadelstein/2015/03/05/in-japan-people-are-flipping-out-over-the-flip-phone-galapagos-phone-whats-old-is-new-again/
Two is better than one
While contract renewals may have made up the bulk of the increased demand for flip phones, there’s also a segment of Japanese consumers buying flip phones as a second mobile device….
