comScore has made public the results of its latest study regarding the online preferences of Japanese users for the month of June. As it turns out, an important role was played by the launch of Apple’s iPhone 3G in the country, which caused users here to pay more attention than usual to technology-related news and reviews.

 

“The July 11 launch of the Apple iPhone 3G, the first release of the iPhone in the Japanese market, was met with much anticipation and enthusiasm,” said Maru Sato, managing director of comScore Japan. “Consumers seeking news and information on the iPhone caused a flurry of activity on technology news sites and at SoftBank.jp, the exclusive phone carrier of the iPhone in Japan.”

 

The audience of health-oriented websites also increased with a month-over-month 18%, mostly because summer came with a series of medical issues, such as allergies and sunstrokes. Financial information sites were also an interesting target, as 16% more Japanese visited the online resources offering such details, compared with the previous month.

 

The retail-movies online business also went up by 16%. This was explained by comScore by that, due to the global economic recession and soaring gas prices, people preferred spending their free time at home, watching movies. The same challenging economic environment also led to a substantial increase in the audience of career services and development in the country, as people were naturally interested in finding better-paid jobs.

 

The most popular online properties in Japan maintained their position gained in the course of time. Yahoo! sites were once again the most visited websites in the country, with approximately 46 million users in June. Google sites ranked in second, proving that the company still has to work on the development of its localized features in order to meet the global needs. The third position was occupied by Rakuten, a Japanese online shopping mall operator, which proves that, even though the financial situation might not be as good as it was some years ago, people can’t and won’t give up on shopping.