It has been widely reported that QR codes are common place in Japan. In my short time in the country so far I can confirm this to be true. In fact I got one put in my passport as soon as arrived. Since then I’ve seen them all over the place, from hotel information posters to chopstick packaging.
We might think that we are pretty obsessed with our mobiles in the UK, but Japan really takes things to another level. Over here the mobile Internet is nothing new or clever it’s just something they use like phone or the Internet. Consequently people do use QR codes over here, all they do is make something they already do that little bit easier and quicker.
Walking round Osaka city you find a phone in the hand of everyone, young and old, whether they’re with friends or riding their bike. One thing of note is that very few of these phones are what we would necessarily call smartphones in the UK, I’ve seen a few Blackberries and although I’ve seen a fair deal of promotion for the iPhone I’ve not seen many being used. Nearly everyone seems to have a flip phone, none of which are particularly small, but come with a camera and a decent size screen. It appears that Japan’s mobile Internet infrastructure works so well that there is limited desire for change. Their mobile websites work just fine so they don’t need apps, they don’t need 3G because they’ve already got it, and who wants to buy a phone that doesn’t even come with a QR code reader as standard.
The iPhone has a lot to do to convince the Japanese to abandon their flip phones, and the UK still needs a bit more time before we are using are mobiles to obtain services and information at quite the same level as they do over here in Japan.
