September 12, 2006
Mobile commerce seen as future for Japan retailers
Japan's $30 billion e-commerce market is one-fifth of the size of the market in the United States, reports Reuters, but the $3.5 billion mobile commerce, or m-commerce, market is flying ahead of other developed markets and is expected to show explosive growth in years to come.
... "The habit of buying items such as accessories and supplements through Web sites via cellphones typifies a growing trend in Japan, where mobile phones serve a multitude of purposes, such as credit cards, portable music players and train tickets.
Last year, the number of people using cell phones for Internet access exceeded personal computer users in Japan. According to government data, 80 percent of e-commerce by teen-agers aged 15-19 was done on cellphones in 2005.
The size of Japan's mobile commerce market more than tripled from 2002 to 2005 to reach $3.5 billion.The mobile commerce market in the United States and Canada combined is expected to reach only 75 percent of that size by 2009.
... The growth of the m-commerce market is supported by a spread of high-speed third-generation phone services. "One of the changes that came with the 3G services is an increase in flat-fee users," said Jun Hasebe, an analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research. "Impulse shopping accounts for most of the purchases done on mobile phones, and that would not usually happen unless users are on flat fee-based services."
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