Japan’s E-Commerce Market Grows by 10% in 2022

A recent survey on Japan’s e-commerce market released by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry shows that the scale of the business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce market was ¥22.7 trillion in 2022, marking a 9.9% year-on-year increase. The size of this market has doubled over the past nine years, from ¥11.2 trillion in 2013.

By category, physical product sales rose year on year by 5.4% to ¥14.0 trillion, while services such as travel-related services or ticket sales rose 32.4% to ¥6.1 trillion. Sales of digital products such as online games or electronic publications declined 6.1% year on year to ¥2.6 trillion. The noticeable increase in market scale for the service sector comes as there is revived demand for activities outside the home. The e-commerce ratio, defined as the share of online shopping within overall sales of physical products, rose year on year by 0.35 percentage points to 9.1%.

In the physical products sector, e-commerce made progress in the category of publications, visual media, and music software, where it surpassed 50% of the overall market for the first time in 2022, accounting for 52.2% or ¥1.8 trillion. It accounted for 42.0% of the market for household electrical appliances, audiovisual equipment, personal computers, and peripherals, with a total value of ¥2.5 trillion. Meanwhile, it was around 20% for household goods, furniture, and interior goods, and also clothing and accessories, and it was at 4.2% for food, beverages, and alcoholic items.

In the service sector, e-commerce for the main segment of travel services rose 68.0% year on year to ¥2.4 trillion, which was followed by the ¥750 billion e-commerce market for financial services. The market scale for dining, hair salons, ticket sales, and food delivery were each somewhere between ¥500 and ¥700 billion.

The largest market in the digital sector is online games, which declined year on year by 18.8% to ¥1.3 trillion. Electronic publishing increased 10.2% year on year to ¥620 billion, while video streaming increased 15.0% to ¥430 billion and music streaming increased 14.3% to ¥100 billion.

(Translated from Japanese. Banner photo © Pixta.)