Online Landscape in Japan

Makoto Ota

The Yomiuri Shimbun, Tokyo

April 16, 2004

For Your Understanding Japan has:

127 million population 5 major national papers and many other

regional papers Subscription per HH: 1.07 in 2003 Home-delivery rate: 93.9% in 2003 2 editions on weekdays: morning & evening; 1

on Sundays: morning

For Your Understanding 2 Japan has:

70 million Internet users, HH penetration 81.4% in 2002

BB via ADSL prevails

Source: Ministry of General Affairs, 2004

For Your Understanding 3 Japan has;

80 million cell phone subscribers, of which 68 millions are mobile-internet users

All-in-one gadget w/ Java, digital camera, a memory card slot, bar-code reader, IrDA, MP3 player, GPS+navigation, doc+xls+pdf reader… & IC chip, digital TV receiver, and beyond

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

millions

2000/6/1 2001/6/1 2002/6/1 2003/6/1

# of celluar internet subscribers

(Source: MoGA, Telecommunications Carriers Association, Docomo Report Feb. 2004; http://www.nttdocomo.com/files/presscenter/34_No16_Doc.pdf)

The Yomiuri Shimbun Founded in 1874, to turn its 130th anniversary this

year Publishes 10 million copies a day In cooperation w/ The Washington Post, LA Times,

Chicago Tribune, The Times (London), Le Figaro… Governs TV stations, a symphonic orchestra, The

Giants, and so on Reads from top to bottom Also has an English daily, “The Daily Yomiuri”

Yomiuri On Line

Launched in June, 1995 PV: 200 millions (Jan. 2004); UU: 5 millions

at home, 3 millions in office Ads revenue in FY2003: $7.6 million (15%

up) News + features such as jobs, health, women,

cars, money, travel, net&digital, etc.

Keitai Yomiuri

NTT Docomo introduced first in Feb., 1999 Among 80 million cell-phone users, 68 millio

n subscribe to keitai-internet The Yomiuri feeds news, ring-tone melody, p

hotos, email updates for baseball funs w/ 300 thousands subscribers paying $2 mont

hly, resulting in $7 million revenue annually

How YOL works Updated continuously whenever available, like a n

ews agency or a blog “Distribution Center,” created in Mar. 2000, enabl

es to publish articles online on 24/7 basis Same articles as the paper & some materials purch

ased for features News Flow: Reporters Sr. reporter called “Capt

ain” Editors/DC Proofreading Dept. Editors/DC Paper or Web or Cell phone or Electronic Signboard and so on

Market & Problems

Competitors: Other papers. Not so much Yahoo! News in Japan. Not yet Google News

Business model: Only ads, No link Broadband contents: Few movies