May 29, 2020 Results of FY2019 Communication Usage Trend Survey

  The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has compiled the results of the communication usage trend survey, which investigated the usage state of information and communications services in households and businesses at the end of 2011.
  The detailed results of the survey will be posted in the Information & Communications Statistics Database and the e-Stat and opened to the public in a data format suitable for machine reading (in CSV).
(URL: https://www.soumu.go.jp/johotsusintokei/statistics/statistics05.html)

[Main points of the results of this survey]

• 1.
  The percentage of Internet users was close to 90%, i.e., 89.8% of the total number of informants. The usage rate in an age group of 6 to 12 years and that of 60 years and older, in particular, increased by at least 10 points.
• 2.
  The proportion of households with family members owning smartphones continued increasing, and it exceeded 80% for the first time. The share of individuals was also increasing, reaching 67.6%.
• 3.
  The introduction rate of cloud computing services in enterprises exceeded 60% for the first time. The outsourcing of the asset maintenance system was recognized as a merit, and 85.5% of all companies introduced the system responded that they are as effective or somewhat effective.
• 4.
  Approximately 30% of the companies replied that they introduced telework or had plans to introduce telework, and the number of companies introducing or planning on telework was on the rise. On an industry-by-industry basis, there are many introductions in the information and communications industry and the finance and insurance industry.
  (The survey was conducted at the end of September 2019, which was before the spread of novel coronavirus infection.)

[Survey outline]

The communication usage trend survey is targeting households (whole households and their members) and businesses. It has been conducted as a general statistical survey on businesses based on the Statistics Act (Act No.53 of 2007) every year since 1990 except 1994. The survey on household members has been conducted since 2001. The survey has targeted households on a prefecture-by-prefecture basis since 2010.