Japan

In 2023, other dairy is expected to suffer a significant decline in retail volume terms in Japan, as consumers have been tightening their belts in response to higher living costs. Other dairy manufacturers had already implemented price increases in…

Economic freedom in Japan continues to benefit the private sector, as does limited corruption, but fiscal health remains weak. Unemployment is low, but the economy faces external forces that are weakening its performance. Ageing and depopulation…

There was huge demand for televisions in the country little more than a decade ago. During the period 2009-2011, two drivers pushed up sales of televisions significantly. One was the shift of broadcasting from analogue to digital in July 2011. The…

2022 was a difficult year for players in consumer electronics. Price increases on materials, including semiconductor chips, and the weakened Japanese yen made it difficult for brands to secure profits. Some could easily apply price increases for…

Sales of eyewear in Japan are being heavily influenced by unit price increases in 2023, following various unfavourable external conditions impacting production, raw material costs, and shipping of products. Furthermore, increasing labour costs and…

Facial tissues, comprising boxed facial tissues and pocket handkerchiefs, witnessed a significant drop in demand in 2020, due to home seclusion as a result of the pandemic. Usage of facial tissues was therefore limited, as the population was less…

Vending machines have a large presence in Japan and have been part of local culture for decades. The pandemic resulted in a strong sales decline for vending in 2020 followed by a low decline in 2021 due to restrictions and lower footfall in…

Value sales of convenience stores, the only category within convenience retailers in Japan at the end of the review period, were on an upward trend prior to the emergence of COVID-19. After a sudden decline in 2020 due to the pandemic and subsequent…

In 2020, air care saw stronger retail volume and current value growth than in the previous few years, as COVID-19 emerged and spread in Japan. This was mainly for two reasons. One was a trend led by home seclusion – to make the home a better place in…

The impact of COVID-19 continued in 2022, as the states of emergency and quasi-states of emergency announced to prevent the spread of the virus continued in Tokyo, Osaka, and other major cities until the end of March 2022. However, womenswear showed…

There was a time when functions meant value in appliances. Microwaves were first released around 1960 in Japan, beginning with business use and expanding to consumer use. At the time these were considered super premium products and were not…

Lagging slightly behind many other countries globally, Japan finally eased its various regulations around COVID-19 in 2023. This has been very significant for the travel industry, not only in terms of deregulation, but also in terms of changes in…

Headphones in Japan saw fairly flat sales in 2022, and this is set to continue in 2023. Both in volume and current value terms, these two years are set to see growth or declines of less than 1%. Looking at category performances in volume terms,…

In 2022, total volume sales of RTDs recorded a slight decline. This was the first fall in sales in 15 years, since the category had been growing every year since 2008. The biggest reason for the decline was a partial reversal of the increase in…

Cider/perry witnessed an increase in total volume sales in 2022, thanks to a rebound in on-trade sales. In March 2022, Japan ended the COVID-19 quasi-emergency in all prefectures, and foodservice outlets were able to operate without any restrictions.…

In 2022, cigarettes continued to record a decline in retail volume sales. However, the decline was the smallest in recent years, thanks to the end of tax increases. The government conducted a reform of the tobacco tax scheme from 2018 to 2022, to…

Since late 2022, various manufacturers and retailers began to announce price increases for spectacles. Leading category player, JINS Inc, announced a 5-13% price increase for its spectacle frames in November 2022, while leading optical goods store,…

Although the declining demand for depilatories in Japan notably slowed in 2022, the overall size of the category in terms of both retail volume and value sales remained lower than pre-pandemic levels. The biggest reason for the weak demand was due to…

Consumer foodservice in Japan finally saw double-digit growth in current value sales in 2022, after it suffered declines for two consecutive years as quasi-states of emergency and states of emergency were implemented several times throughout 2020 and…

Home seclusion was a trend throughout both 2020 and 2021. In 2020, people were forced to stay at home due to COVID-19, especially in April and May, when the state of emergency, a soft lockdown with few legitimate punishments, was declared by the…