Until Apple’s release of the iPhone and accompanying App Store, Japan was more or less the undisputed leader in mobile technology and innovation.  Roughly 90% of the population owns some form of mobile phone.  Their mobile networks are faster and cover a greater portion of the country.

What’s more interesting, 8 years ago the breakdown of revenue from Japan’s mobile internet looked remarkably similar to the current breakdown of revenues for the rest of the world.  These are just a small number of the many observations to appear in Morgan Stanley’s 424-page Mobile Internet Report.

Japan’s market anticipated the popularity of recreational applications of mobile technology including games and video, and Morgan Stanly’s report hints that it may give additional insight into how mobile internet revenue will change over the next decade.

By this model, data access will take up a smaller portion of the mobile revenue pie, with advertising and commerce doubling their revenue shares and paid services roughly tripling its revenue share.

That alone would be a reason for someone selling merchandise or services online to consider making the switch to mobile now.  Add to it the fact that the overall revenue from Japan’s mobile internet grew sevenfold over the same time span, and there is little reason not to stake out mobile territory, while the landscape is still relatively unpopulated.

Google in Japan

Google dominates search and online marketing in the United States.  It is therefore not surprising that web developers and search engine marketers look to Google when figuring out what products to offer or advice to give.

But in 2008, Business Week ran a report that indicated that Google itself was looking to Japan, to figure out how to prepare its services for the mobile web.  Some of the trends Google discovered were that mobile browsers were even more interested in images and videos than their desktop and laptop counterparts.  This led to the now universal trend among major search engines to display images and videos on the first search engine results page.

They also learned that the Japanese would use their mobile phones to surf the web even while in their own homes, where they presumably had access to personal computers.