Key facts about Japan Digital Landscape (updated Aug 2017)

Hi there,

Update Jan 2019: an updated version of this article with the latest data points is here “key facts about Japan digital landscape Jan 2019

Due to popular demand, I am updating some key facts about Japan Digital Landscape in 2017. You could refer to a few other older posts about Japan at the bottom of this post.

Here is the slide share version or you could download from Google Drive here.

1.Japan will be amongst the top 6 countries globally in terms of internet users in 2018

japan us china and world wide internet users 2017 2021

2.With more than 26M people above 65 years old, Japan has a sizable number of senior internet users (>8M) compared to other countries. Internet usage for age group between 20-49 is nearly 100%.

japan internet usage by age group

3.Adults in Japan spend roughly equal amount of time on mobile phone/personal computer vs TV in 2017. This trend will continue in the next few years

average time spent per day by japan adults on tv mobile phone desktop lapdop internet 2017

4.Line is the most popular smartphone app in Japan in 2016 based on monthly average unique users

Twitter and Yahoo Japan have the highest percentage increase vs 2015.
Twitter is as popular as Facebook and both are far behind Line when it comes to social networks/messaging in Japan.

top 10 smartphone apps in japan ranked by monthly unique users 2016

5.Yahoo Japan is exceptionally strong (avg. 34M monthly unique visitors) when it comes to popular web property

top 10 web properties in japan based on monthly unique users 2016

6. Rakuten still leads the market in both awareness and usage for ecommerce sites

ecommerce site that digital buyers in japan aware of vs use apr 2017

7.Digital ad spend accelerated, while out -of-home and TV are expected to maintain well. Digital ad spend is expected to overtake TV by 2020

media ad spend for tv digital out of home and other media in japan 2017

8. Mobile ad spend is on schedule to command 72% of of the total digital ad spend by 2020

mobile ad spend in japan as percentage of digital ad spend 2017 - 2020

9. Japan digital ad spending per internet user ($98.25) is at 11st in the world in 2017. This means that internet advertising in Japan is not as competitive as AU, US, UK and other countries.

digital ad spend per internet users world wide 2017

10. JP ecommerce is the second largest in APAC (behind China) but the growth rate is quite slow against other countries

japan ecommerce vs china us uk and south korea from 2017 - 2020

Thanks and that is all for now. If you are keen to look at previous reports about JP, below are some useful links:

key facts about Japan digital landscape Jan 2019

8 key facts about Japan Digital Marketing Landscape Mar 2016

8 key facts about Japan e-commerce Mar 2016

8 key facts about Japan Mobile Game Industry Jan 2017

Thanks,
Chandler

P.S: in another unrelated topic, I recently published a book about team management on Amazon so feel free to check it out.

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