Japan's e-commerce market is expected to grow by 6.9% in 2022, still the world's fourth largest market

Japan’s e-commerce market will grow 6.9% this year to $194.3 billion, according to a recent study by Global Data .

This means that the four major leaders in the global e-commerce market will remain unchanged, and Japan will still rank fourth after China, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Global Data predicts that Japanese consumers will spend 22.4 trillion yen ($194.3 billion) on online shopping this year, marking a further acceleration in the pace at which Japanese consumers are turning to online .

The data and analytics agency 's research found that Japanese e-commerce sales grew at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.2% between 2018 and 2021 , reaching 20.9 trillion yen ($181.7 billion) in 2021 .

The study cited official Japanese data showing that more than 50% of Japanese households shopped online in July 2022. According to the Household Economic Survey of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications of Japan, online consumption that month increased by 17.2% compared with the monthly average in 2021.

In GlobalData’s 2022 Financial Services Consumer Survey, nearly 70% of Japanese shoppers said they had shopped online in the past month , with only 8% saying they never shopped online.

Ravi Sharma, chief analyst at GlobalData, said: "Japan's e-commerce market has achieved sustained growth over the past five years, thanks to high penetration of smartphones and the Internet and consumers ' preference for online shopping. More and more consumers are turning from in-store shopping to online shopping, and the e-commerce industry is one of the few areas that has maintained positive growth even during the epidemic. "

GlobalData's forecast means that the ranking of the global e-commerce market is likely to remain unchanged. Japan's ranking in the international market will remain fourth , behind China (annual sales of US$2.1 trillion), the United States (US$1.5 trillion) and the United Kingdom (US$292.1 billion).

Sharma added: “The COVID-19 pandemic has created a permanent shift in consumer shopping habits, with more people choosing to shop online, a trend expected to continue. As a result, e-commerce sales in Japan are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.2% between 2022 and 2026 , reaching 27.4 trillion yen ($237.8 billion) in 2026.

Japan

E-commerce