Report 2. (16-October-1999)

　"Pingu of the world every countries"

It was 1992 I started PC-network and started Internet from 1995. At the beginning, I only visited other person's web site, but soon, I began to write in the guest book of some web site, which I often visited. And at last, I made up and opened my own web site "K & Chieko's Pingu Gallery"

Nearly 3 years has passed after I opened my web site on Dec. 1st of 1996. During the 3 years, I had much e-mail from the people of various countries. I've been answered for each e-mail, off course. Generally, I exchanged the mail once of twice for one person, but sometimes I've had exchanged mails nearly 50 times. It had be a long association with him. I am keeping the mail I received as remembrance.

Most of the mail senders gave me their residential place, So I could make some database for them. The following is that I summarized the numbers of mail senders by each countries, in order of time we exchange the mail. (It seems a little thoughtless to decide the country name from the domain, so for the people who didn't inform their country, I counted to the unknown country of the report of the below. And also, Japanese mail senders are not included in this summary because of they are repeating with Pingu-Mailing List.)

	Country	Count of  person			Country	Count of  person
1	Canada	44		14	Belgium	2
2	U.S.A.	40			Norway	2
3	United Kingdom	20		16	Germany	1
4	Hong Kong	17			France	1
5	Italy	12			Spain	1
6	Australia	11			Greece	1
7	Taiwan	7			Finland	1
8	Mexico	6			Denmark	1
9	Newzealand	5			Israel	1
10	Brazil	4			Saudia Arabia	1
11	Netherlands	3			Malta	1
	Sweden	3			South Korea	1
	Singapore	3		**	Unknown	31

Those data was based on the numbers of people who visited K ＆ Chieko's Pingu Gallery and send us the mail. It may be possible to me to make much more detailed data considering the population of each country and spread of Internet. Even so, it is surprising there are no mails from Switzerland.

The following is my consideration based on the data. (The data was collected personally, so it may not be some help....)

• First of all, the No. 1 country is Canada. The spread of Internet percentage may be reflected to the result. It is a little surprising to consider the population of Canada where has 30 million of population. The most of the mail contents are inquiries for video. About 3 years ago, in Canada, people could buy pingu video at shops and there are some computer sight which dealing the video by Internet mail-order system. But now, they don't. Actually, when I went to Canada for business trip, I looked for pingu goods there, but I couldn't find out at last. Although the pingu video was on the air every Saturday & Sunday.

• The next one is the U.S.
  I think the reason is from the population and spread of Internet percentage. Though there are some regional deference's, some region people can watch the video on TV program called "Small World". And also, in some regions, people can watch the Canadian TV program about Pingu. About pingu goods, there's no shop in the U.S. dealing pingu goods ex.video, books, toys....etc. I've heard some books were sold in the past. Once, I have received a mail that pingu video which was bought by mail order from Canada were favorably received by neighborhood children. So, I want the shops of the U.S. to sell at least video by all means. Is there any plan to export the video from Japan to the U.S.? In the U.S. and Canada, the video can be played as it is.

• I think Japan is the country that has the biggest popularity about pingu of the world. It is not Switzerland, because pingu goods except snacks cannot be found at any shop there. The second country is the U.K. for the popularity of pingu. In the U.K., the popularity of pingu is considerably good that the BBC played up pingu's video on the TV program, and pingu dolls or toys are sold there. But we have to face the fact that pingu is in very severe competition with "Teletabies" in Europe. It is so lonely that pingu magazine is at last suspended the publication

• Although in Asia, pingu has become popular recently, while his popularity in Europe is on the wane. From the beginning of this year, I received much e-mails but most of them are from Hong Kong and Taiwan. It looks like Japanese pingu goods outflow to those countries. I have known that some people got pingu comic magazine. video, cellular phone straps or goods of amusement arcade. Isn't it wonderful to liven up pingu with the Whole Asian countries.

• For the contents of e-mail, over of the half are inquiries about pingu video and goods. And others are the comments for my web site. There is big differece in the inquiries between Westerners and Asian people. The most of the inquiries from Westners are "Please tell me the way to get Pingu's video, because my children like pingu.", while Asian sender want to know the pingu goods which are sold in Japan.

The above summary had made from the limited data. I will keep adding any e-mail from you as a precious one to my computer files. It may be a little hard to write e-mail generally. If I had a Guest book in my web site, it will become easier to write in and collect much more data....