Smartphone-Holding Households Top TV Owners in Japan

Tokyo, May 29 (Jiji Press)–The share of Japanese households owning smartphones outnumbered that of television-owning households for the first time last year, the communications ministry said Friday. A survey by the ministry found that 91.8 pct of households owned smartphones in 2025, up from 90.5 pct a year earlier, while TV ownership fell to 90.1 pct from 91.5 pct. It marked the first time that smartphones surpassed TVs since TV ownership was added to the survey in 2019. TV ownership has declined steadily since 2021. The decline “may reflect increasingly entrenched habits of watching content on smartphones at home” instead of TVs, a ministry official said. Internet usage topped 90 pct across every age bracket from 13 to 69, according to the ministry. The survey showed that 74.2 pct of internet users felt some degree of anxiety about going online, up 2.4 percentage points from the previous year. Concerns over leaks of personal information and browsing histories ranked highest across all age groups. The survey was conducted at the end of August last year and drew valid responses from 17,916 households. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]