MMD Labo provides English Service!!

MMD Labo, one of the largest mobile market research firm in Japan has announced that they are providing English service for their research reports.

You can check out one sample of their English report here.

Online Banking Services Leads the Financial Service Apps in Japan

Online Banking services are the most popular online financial services in Japan, according to MMD Labo's latest research on Mobile Financial Services.

Over 40% of users have used Online Banking services while mobile payment services only 9.5% and cryptocurrency services only 3.5%. Men are using financial services more aggressively than women except for the usage of household account book apps.

The top 3 online banking services are;
1. Rakuten Bank - 38%
2. Yucho (postal savings) Direct - 30%
3. MUFG Bank - 27%



Details in Japanese; MMD Labo Mobile Financial Services Survey Aug. 2018

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

76% of Feature Phone Users in Japan Is Not Considering to Shift to Smartphones

According to MMD Labo's Feature Phone user survey, 76% of users still want to keep using feature phones and has no intent to change to smartphones. There are various reasons behind this but one of the reason and a significant one is that they think smartphones are expensive. The ideal price range for feature phone users seems to be ¥1,001~¥2,000 and 37.5% of users answered so.

However, 40% of the users answered they will consider buying a smartphone once the 3G service ends.

Details in Japanese; MMD Labo Feature Phone user survey Jun. 2018

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

18% of Japanese Still Using Feature Phones

According to the latest Mobile Device Share Survey released by MMD Labo, 18.1% of mobile phone users in Japan are still using feature phones.

On the other hand, the smartphone OS usage ratio in Japan has a relatively high iOS ratio comparing to other western countries. Android 40% against iOS 35.2% and others 0.4% out of the entire mobile phone users which means iOS is about 47% of the total smartphone users.

The iOS usage is particularly high in young and women users in Japan;
Male 10's - 63.5%
Male 20's - 49.1%
Female 10's - 72.5%
Female 20's - 62.7%
Female 30's - 48.4% (Male 40%)
Female 50's - 45.1% (Male 42%)



Details in Japanese; MMD Labo 2018 Aug. Mobile Device Share Survey

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

Recruiters Chose University of Tsukuba as Best University - research by Nikkei HR & Nikkei

Nikkei and Nikkei HR asked recruiters of public companies and leading companies of non-public companies the impression of universities from the new grads they have hired in the past. University of Tsukuba came in top from 17th previous year in the overall ranking. On the other hand, due to high recruiting demand from companies, many of them are seeking to hire from local universities and Hirosaki University came in 1st for "aggressively hiring" category.

University of Tsukuba was voted as all-arounder coming in high ranks for all 4 areas - 4th in "taking action", 2nd in "interpersonal skills", 5th in "intelligence and knowledge" and 3rd in "creativity". The University has been keeping their education cross-sectional in terms of their curriculum and staying away from specializing in a certain area. On top of this culture, they started a new degree program called "Tsukuba Standard" from 2007 where students can grow their international compatibility. Corporate recruiting staffs says creating this unique educational environment helped Tsukuba's student improve their all-arounder skill-set.


Kyoto University came in 2nd place in the overall ranking, followed by Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology as 3rd and Osaka University as 4th.Within the top 10 ranking, only Waseda (8th) and Keio (9th) came in from private universities and all others were National Universities.

Details in Japanese; Nikkei article - 2018 university ranking by recruiters

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

22% of Japanese High Schools have WIFI

According to a joint survey about mobile/internet usage environment among teenagers conducted by MMD and TesTee Inc., 22% of High School students and 25.9% of Junior High School students said they have WIFI environment at school. Other highlights are below;

• 21.6% of junior high and 84.3% of high school students answered they are allowed to bring their mobile phone to school.
•  The top condition in order to bring their mobile phones to school for junior high were "get approval from school in advance" and for high school were "keep it in your bag during class turned off".
• Devices used at school are "desktop, laptop, iPad"
• The main things students learn on computer devices are how to use "MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint" as well as "typing"
• Commonly used method in case of emergency, "bulk email" the most for junior high school and "message sent through their classroom group in LINE"

Details in Japanese; 2018 April IT Usage Environment Survey

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

75% of Japanese Mobile Users Still Have Not Used Mobile Payment

MMD Labo released a result of their Mobile Payment Usage survey they conducted in early May 2018.

A few highlights from the results are;

• 16.9% is currently using mobile payment, 7.3% have used in the past and 75.7% have never used mobile payment
• About half of the users who have never used mobile payment have interest
• Most users use mobile payment for public transportation but the usage has been expanding to others and the top reason for that is "they can receive incentives" 53.4% followed by "changes are a hassle" 48%
• 66% of entire users are positive to cashless society

The survey was conducted through internet to 967 men and women at ages 15~69.

Details in Japanese; MMD Labo 2018 May Mobile Payment Usage Survey

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

People who do not have TV in Japan continues to increase

OnlineVideo Soken, CyberAgent's research institution focused on online video ads conducted a TV time spend survey - so called "Low-tele survey" to 20000 people at ages 10~60 years old.

According to this research, 1 out of 6 people in late teenagers and 20's either "do not have a TV" or "have not watched TV in the past 30 days" whom are categorized as "Non-TV". Also, the "Low-TV" category who watches TV less than 1 hour on weekdays and less than 2 hours during weekends have increased 5pt in the late teens and 6pt in the 20's.

The survey categorizes people's TV behavior in the below 6 categories;

1. Non-TV; people who do not have a TV or have not watched TV in the past 30 days
2. Super Low-TV; people who watches TV less than 30 minutes on weekdays and less than 1 hour during the weekends
3. Low-TV; people who watches TV less than 1 hour on weekdays and less than 2 hours during the weekends
4. Middle-TV; people who watches TV more than 2 hours on weekdays OR more than 3 hours during the weekends
5. High-TV; people who watches TV more than 3 hours on weekdays and more than 3 hours during the weekends
6. Super High-TV; people who watches TV more than 5 hours on weekdays and more than 5 hours during the weekends

The Low group (Non-TV, Super Low-TV and Low-TV) is 38.6% and the High group (High-TV and Super High-TV) is 32.3% out of the entire people. When you look at these groups by age groups, Low is 48% within the late teens, 45% within 20's, 44% within 30's, 42% within 40's, 35% within 50's and 26% within 60's.

Detail in Japanese article; CyberAgent research - 2018 Time Spend on TV

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

2018 Wage Increase Rate in Japan 2.31%

According to Nikkei's wage trend survey, the wage increase rate in 2018 has rose 0.28 pt from last year to 2.31% keeping high increase rate for 5 consecutive years. The wage increase is expanding to part timers too and have seen increase in hourly wages over the past 3 years particularly in logistics, service industries which cater to foreign travelers to Japan like hotels and cram schools.

Most industries are shorthanded and thus the wage increase but still many companies struggling to hire.

Details in Japanese article; Nikkei article - 2018 Wage Increase Rate in Japan 2.31%

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

Rakuten domestic gross market sales increases 11.4% annually

Rakuten announced it's 2018 Q1(Jan~Mar) earnings this month. Their domestic EC gross market sales were 857.6 B JPY increasing 11.4% from 2015 Q1. The sales coming through mobile devices grew 3.7 pt and the mobile revenue ratio is now up to 66.5%. Apparel sales and the expansion of their Direct Sales Division as well as their group company synergy within the various domains drove the increase. For example, the payment via their Rakuten Credit card has increased 4.2 pt month over month and expanded to 55.8%.

They have succeeded in cross-selling their group service usage and increased overall EC revenue by a point incentive program called SPU (Supper Point Up Program) where the users who uses any Rakuten group service will receive a higher incentive point rate whenever they purchase.

Details in English; Rakuten 2018 Earnings

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

Japan CPI increases YoY in April 2018

Statistics Department of Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications announced April's  National CPI of Japan. According to the report, last month's CPI all items excluding fresh food was 100.9 and increased 0.6% year on year. It is 16 consecutive months for CPI to increase annually in Japan.


Details in English; MIC Statistics Department Apr. 2018 CPI report
Details in Japanese; MIC Statistics Department Apr. 2018 CPI report

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

2018 New Grad employement rate 98% - highest since 1997

According to Nikkei's article this morning, 98% of the new grads in Japan in 2018 has been employed and started working from April 1st. This was found from a research released by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This was the highest rate since the ministries have started the research in 1997 and has been beating the highest record for 3 consecutive years. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology says "This is due to companies' hiring demand increasing as the economic recovery trend continues in Japan."

Details in Japanese; Nikkei article - May 18th, 2018

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

Marketing Automation tool adoption rate in Japan still very low

A Japanese digital marketing consulting firm, Nexal Inc. conducted a research on the usage of MA(marketing automation) tool within the 335k companies in Japan. The research was conducted May 2017.

According to this research, the adoption rate is still 0.5% within the 335k companies and 4.3% when you look at the 3654 listed companies in Japan within this group. There were many companies using multiple MA tools but this number excludes the duplication.

The most highest usage were seen in company size of 1B JPY~5B JPY capital companies - which can be categorized as upper mid market companies in Japan - at 4% adoption rate followed by 5B JPY~ capital companies at 3.6% adoption rate.

In terms of industries, the top 7 high adopting industries are IT/Media/Advertising at 1.3%, Services 0.63%, Consulting/Accounting/Law Firms 0.55%, Manufacture/Machines 0.5%, Real Estate 0.48%, Retail 0.36% and Construction 0.22%.

The top 3 most used MA tools are;
No.1 LIST FINDER
No.2 PARDOT
No.3 MARKETO

Details in Japanese; MA Tool Research by Nexal Inc. Sep. 30th 2017

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

Jan-Mar 2018 Japan GDP -0.2%

May 16th 2018, the Japan Cabinet Office announced Jan.~Mar. 2018 GDP report. According to the release, the GDP dropped to -0.2% which is the first time in the past 9 quarters to go negative.

The domestic demand was very weak particularly in capital and housing investments as well as exports (automotive export grew especially in the European market however semiconductor related influenced the overall export)

Details; Cabinet Office - Quarterly Estimates of GDP Jan.~Mar. 2018

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.

Internet penetration in Japan - 2016

According to Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications's 2016 Telecommunications Whitepaper, internet users in Japan increased 380,000 in 2016 comparing to the previous year reaching 100,840,000 users. This translates to 83.5% penetration rate in total population of Japan.

<Internet usage per device>

• PC 58.6%
• Mobile phone 57.9%
• Tablet 23.6%

<User demographic trend>
Internet usage rate difference across ages have been decreasing and ages 13~59 has over 90% usage rate. Ages 6~12 cluster have increased significantly from 74% to 82% in 2016.
Usage based on household income has not changed that much from 2015 to 2016 and we still see higher usage in higher household income cluster.

Details in Japanes; MIC 2016 Telecommunications Whitepaper

Inside Japan - Providing marketing data, market insights, research data for Japan market.