7 Tips !

Tak Miyata @takmiyata !

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The

of entering Japanese market for tech startups

If Sushi is the only thing you know about Japan, it would be difficult to succeed in the Japanese market

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Today, I talk about 7 Tips of entering the Japanese market

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#1 : Japan is the largest mobile App market and has the highest ARPU

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Japan is the Largest app

market in the world

Source : AppAnnie

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There’s a huge chance for any mobile startups

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i-mode, the world first mobile

internet service, started in 1999.

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Average commuting time in Tokyo about 1 Hour in Tokyo.

#２ : TV Ad is one of the major ways to promote a mobile App

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Others 18%

WoM 19%

Mobile Ad 27%

TV Ad 36%

TV Ad drove 11M download of the Fashion C2C App, Mercari

Game News Crowd

Source : MMD Research

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TV ad is still Growing.

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The TV industry in Japan is still regulated and

dominated by 5 nationwide channels

#3 : People Don’t use Credit Cards for payment

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Credit 18%

Cash 82%

Debit 30%

Credit 24%

Cash 46%

Cash payment is still in the

majority.

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Sometimes, this is a challenge for US startups.

NFC payment is popular already.

#4 : A Mobile Messaging App,

LINE is HUGE.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/05/navers-skype-competitor-line-crosses-20-million-mark/

560M Users

170M MAU

13B Messages/Day

1.8B Stamp/Day

Source : LINE Conference Tokyo 2014

Japanese teens

communicate via Stamps, not via Text via Voice.

The companies can promote their

products or services by providing

Free stamps (200k~).

Taxi Delivery Payment Musichttp://markezine.jp/article/detail/21059

LINE does

Everything!

http://markezine.jp/article/detail/21059

#5 : Large incumbents may not be a good market partner

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/05/navers-skype-competitor-line-crosses-20-million-mark/

eBay, an online marketplace, partnered with NEC, a tech conglomerate to enter the Japanese market in 2000, but, they ended operations in just 2 years

Evernote, a note-taking application, partnered with a mobile operator, NTT Docomo and gained huge success in Japan, because of a conducive partnership and perfect timing

Kamcord, a game video sharing application partnered with gaming companies DeNA, KLab and GungHo for the Japanese market, which make total sense.

It is common nowadays for various Japanese companies to have US teams that support and facilitate partnerships with startups

HR

IoT

Retail

Enterprise

Game

Mobile

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#6 : US Model/ Product sometime doesn’t work

http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/05/navers-skype-competitor-line-crosses-20-million-mark/

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9%

91%

Source : Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Japanese employees tend to stay in only one company until they retire

No thermostat at home.

Tokyo has a convenience store everywhere within a 10-min walk radius

#7 : Work with Scrum Ventures!

Scrum bridges the US startup ecosystem and the Asian partners.

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Scrum operates a collaboration office “ZenSquare” in SF.

Scrum helps organizing the US panel in the large Asian event “B Dash Camp” twice a year.

Scrum started the video media “ZenSquare TV” featuring the events, interviews and product reviews for Asian people.

Visit our website to learn more :

scrumventures.coPhoto by sputnik - Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License https://www.flickr.com/photos/hellosputnik/1508460020