June 18, 2021 Results of FY2020 Communication Usage Trend Survey

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has compiled the results of a communication usage trend survey, which investigated the usage state of information and communications services in households and businesses at the end of August 2020.
The detailed results of the survey will be posted in the Information & Communications Statistics Database and the e-Stat and data on the posted content opened to the public in a data format suitable for machine-reading applications (in CSV). (available only in Japanese, URL: https://www.soumu.go.jp/johotsusintokei/statistics/statistics05.html)

Main points of the results of this survey

• 1.
  The percentage of households owning smartphones was 86.8%. The rate was growing steadily. The rate of individuals owning smartphones was also on the rise. On the other hand, the ownership rate of mobile phones and PHS continued to decline.
• 2.

  As for personal Internet devices, smartphones continued to outnumber personal computers, and at least 90% of individuals aged 20 to 39 were using them.

• 3.
  The introduction of telework in businesses progressed rapidly, and the percentage of businesses that introduced telework more than doubled from the previous year to 47.5%. More than 90% of businesses in the information and communications industry had already introduced telework on an industry-by-industry basis. As for reasons for their introduction, the ratio of businesses reasoning business continuity in emergencies (e.g., the rampancy of infectious diseases) was higher than any other reason and close to 70%.
• 4.
  The introduction rate of cloud computing services in businesses rose to nearly 70%. Those using cloud computing services recognized the merits of cloud computing, including the simplicity of cloud computing not subject to locations or equipment types and ease of outsourcing assets and maintenance services, and 87.1% of businesses that introduced cloud computing recognized it effective or somewhat effective.

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 (the business survey was added in 1993 and has been conducted every year since then except 1994. The household survey on household members has been conducted since 2001). In addition, the survey has targeted households on a prefecture-by-prefecture basis since 2010.