Japan is a strong ecommerce market, with a high proportion of urban population and significant internet penetration rate at almost 80%. 75% of the population have purchased products online, and 89% of this group have done so from a mobile device. Japanese merchants have been exporting significant amounts of merchandise cross-border, primarily to the US and China. Conversely, cross-border ecommerce imports are lower, with only 20% of Japanese online consumers buying from abroad.
• Total Population - 127.3 million • Age Breakdown - Almost a quarter of the population (24.8%) in Japan are over 65, the second largest section after the 24-54 age limit (38.3%). • Religion - Religion in Japan is characterised by syncretism; most people identify with more than one religion and sometimes combine more than two. - Religions that are commonly combined are Shinto and Buddhism; the percentages for these religions equate to more than 100%. • Urban Population - 92% • Internet Penetration - 79.9% 101.6 million • Mobile Penetration - 102% • Tablet Penetration - 10% • Smartphone Penetration - 55% • Online Shoppers - 76 million • Ecommerce Sales USD 104.7 billion (JPY 11.2 trillion) • Ecommerce Penetration - 44.6% • Ecommerce CAGR - 10.9% (2008 – 2013) • Mobile Commerce - 89% of Japanese consumers have participated in mobile commerce activities. - Japan rates third globally in app usage, at an average of 40 apps per smartphone, and ranks highest globally in paid app usage at 18 apps per phone. - 22% of online shopping in Japan was conducted through mobile devices including smartphones, tablets and future phones. It was worth approximately USD 9.7 billion. • Mobile OS Platforms - iOS is the preferred mobile operating system in Japan, with 68.7% share.
Cross-border Ecommerce Opportunities • 10.2% of Japanese online consumers shop from overseas websites. • 99% of the Japanese population fully comprehends websites with content in the Japanese language, thus localisation is key element to success in Japan. • The US and China are the main destinations for both cross-border ecommerce export and import from Japan.
Language as a Key Driver • The official language of Japan is Japanese, spoken by 125 million speakers, almost exclusively in Japan. 99% of the population speaks Japanese. • Japanese speakers can also be found in Brazil (1.4 million), the US (1.2 million) China (130,000), Canada (110,000) and Australia (35,000). In Japan, there are also a number of Korean and Chinese speakers, 640,000and 500,000respectively.