Its people have a reputation for jumping on cutting-edge technology faster and earlier than the rest of the world, bit Japan has remained a tough nut to crack for tech companies.
Even a behemoth like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) has had trouble infiltrating the market. For example, the company has sold around 53 million Xbox 360 video game consoles worldwide since 2005. In Japan, the cradle of the video game console industry, Microsoft has struggled to sell even 2 million Xboxes. This is because Microsoft is a foreign company. That it’s an American company is beside the point — the Japanese people have traditionally preferred products and services made by Japanese companies.
While a grand sea change hasn’t taken place, there are a number of non-Japanese technology companies making a significant impact on the Japanese market. Some of them are even beginning to erode the sales of products made by Japanese companies. Here are three changing the face of Japanese consumer habits.
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Given the way Apple’s reign has spread over most of the world, it should be unsurprising that it’s also having an impact on Japan. But its popularity is surprising. At the end of 2010, the iPhone accounted for a whopping 72% of the Japanese smartphone market. The iPad also has proven hugely popular in the country. Even though the populace is still reeling from the earthquake and tsunami in March, enough people turned out for the iPad 2’s release on Friday to line multiple Tokyo blocks. At least one consumer buying a new iPad last week said they were purchasing it rather than Sony’s (NYSE:SNE) S1 because it was sleeker than Sony’s “clunky” tablet.
Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN)
While Amazon’s retail operation in Japan has always been healthy — the company’s international segment, which includes Amazon.jp, generated $5.7 billion in 2010, up 26% over the previous year — it’s been the success of the Kindle that’s been truly impressive. Though Amazon has never revealed full sales numbers for the e-reader in any region, Amazon.jp was included in the company’s statistic that the Kindle was its best-selling item ever during the holiday 2010 quarter. There is other evidence of the international model of the e-reader’s success in the country, particularly pre-orders for Kindle-related books and especially the 2010 refresh of the entire Sony Reader line of devices.
Although investors are still clambering for an initial public offering from the popular social networking website, would-be shareholders can at least take comfort in knowing that the service is already successful around the world, particularly in Japan. Japan’s Twitter user base began growing significantly in 2009. As of March, the country accounts for one of the three densest populations of Twitter users on the planet. Facebook and other western social networks have never managed to penetrate into Japanese culture, but Twitter is a hot commodity in the region.
