Mobile Adblock in Japan: Results of the Recent Study
Japanese mobile users like to be entertained online, but they hate seeing ads on the websites. They say that mobile ads on those websites are annoying and distracting. Moreover, often advertising blocks pages and people are not able to see the content. That’s when mobile adblockers help. So, why people use adblock in Japan, and which websites need adblock on mobile the most? Free Adblocker Browser, a popular adblock browser for Android, found out answers to these questions and many more.
On which websites adblock is most needed and why
Adult content websites need adblockers the most. That’s what 22.6% of the survey participants revealed. A little bit less – 22.1% of mobile users of adblock in Japan – consider adblock necessary on the websites with entertainment news and stories, and 16.1% – on news websites. Survey respondents also believe that adblock is useful on video streaming services similar to Youtube (11.9%), manga websites (11.6%), social networks (6.9%), and gaming resources (5.3%). In their comments, Free Adblocker Browser users mentioned that adblock is greatly needed on various wiki platforms, online classifieds, and communities.
According to the study results, there are three main reasons why adblock is important on these websites. The main reason is that the ads are distracting the users and perceived as annoying – 40.2% of participants mentioned this. The second reason is that ads block the page and the user cannot see the content (30.8% of responses). The third important factor is that usually, the number of ads on these websites is too large (17.4%). Among other reasons, users mentioned that the shown ads are irrelevant to them personally (4%), that users end up spending money when they click on ads (3.4%), and that ads are distracting (2.4%). In their comments, people complained that ads may contain sexual and/or offensive content, some of them are malicious and bring viruses to their devices. Also, tapping on ads causes opening even more ads, which upsets mobile users.
Most hated types of ads are…
The award for the highest level of user irritation would definitely go to pop-ups. 35.3% of the survey participants replied this is the type of ads they dislike the most. The Japanese respondents are not lonely here. Free Adblocker Browser users from other countries also consider pop-ups the most annoying type of ads. Second prize goes to banners – they receive 24.7% of voices. Non-skippable video ads (12.6%), auto-play video ads (11.6%), and flash animated ads (10.5%) are also unfavorable among the Japanese users.
Mobile, desktop or both?
According to earlier studies by PageFair, 94% of global mobile adblock usage is in Asia-Pacific, while 68% of desktop adblock usage is in North America and Europe. 45.8% of Free Adblocker Browser users in Japan said they have an adblock on desktop working all the time. 5.6% block ads on desktop sometimes, while almost a half – 48.5% – don’t have an adblock on desktop.
For a significant portion of users, mobile adblocking is a relatively new service – 37.3% of study participants have been using it for not longer than 6 months. 25.8% use adblock on mobile for over 1 year, a bit fewer users – 21.5% – for over 6 months. The most experienced users of adblock in Japan have been blocking ads on their mobiles for over 3 years – they comprise 7.3% of the survey participants.
Over a quarter of respondents mentioned they started looking for a mobile adblocker after using it on the desktop. 18.4% of survey participants saw the app under the top apps in the Google Play store. Other sources of information about mobile adblocking were: a post in an online community (11.5%), an article in the media (10.5%), a friend’s recommendation (7.1%), a post in social networks (4.8%). However, lots of users mentioned that they searched for an adblocker by themselves – on the internet or in Google Play store.
The survey was held by Free Adblocker Browser online from April 2 till April 11, 2018. 620 users of adblock in Japan participated in the survey.
Over a half of survey participants are males, 30% – females. 60% of the respondents are aged below 35. Participants represented the following age groups:
- Less than 15 – 2.1%
- 15-17 – 3.9%
- 18-24 – 21.3%
- 25-34 – 30%
- 45-44 – 24.4%
- 45-60 – 12.9%
- Above 60 – 2.1%
