For developers who want to enter the Japanese market, the good news is that with the use of Android and iOS apps, they would have an easier entry point. The reverse is also true: Japanese application developers are also now seeing this same situation as a way for them enter the worldwide market. This is just a side effect of market forces and an automatic reciprocity out of real world realities.
The fact is that Android and iOS are the new platform portals for entering almost any other country's apps market. This is one example of a true world market with a central repository. In this case Google Play and the App Store have opened a flood gate for every developer to transact business anywhere in the world. The only thing that needs to be done is to develop an app which can be used and enjoyed by anyone, young and old alike.
Apps which easily come to mind are those for established browser based apps like Dropbox, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Seismic and Facebook. Other app which has crossed borders with great success is Angry Birds.
Japan has always been a very insular market. Even at the height of Nokia's domination in the 3G phone market, they could not get a good foothold of the Japanese market. In fact, due to their poor performance, Nokia was forced to pull out of the Japanese market. They still sell phones in Japan, but they no longer support the market.
Entering the Japanese mobile app market is not that easy for foreign app developers. Besides the fragmented nature of the market, with lots of feature phone brands, there is also the matter of a portal or platform. Developers know that they need to localize and revise to the local culture. The fragmented market is a daunting hurdle because the developers have to change their apps for each feature phone.
At least that was true until this year. The sales reports for 2012 indicate that iOS and Android now account for the majority of sales in smartphones. With the dominance of Android and iOS, foreign developers now have an avenue where they can develop for the Japanese market on the two major platforms and can hope to be represented in the market without any need for further revisions to account for different hardware and feature phone operating systems. The familiarity with the tools for developing are a big help. That leaves the app developers with only the slight problem of localization and culturization for the Japanese market, which is a totally different concern.
Additionally, app developers who want to get into the Japanese market may skip the need for a Japanese mobile app portal like GREE and DeNA. They can instead rely on traditional strategies for marketing: social media and word of mouth. However, this approach might not be the best strategy when dealing with Japan. GREE, DeNA, and other mobile app portals are much more than just companies which push apps. In Japan, these companies do the same work for apps like Google Play and App Store as well as promote and run these in the same manner that Facebook and Twitter do in Western countries. For at least until the foreseeable future, these companies with their userbase would still control a big part of mobile app market in Japan.
The success of these companies can be seen in the way they monetize mobile apps, to the point that Japan is the second largest country when it comes to app monetization, and it ranks third in app download volume.
A reverse trend is inevitable. Japanese game and app developers can also use Google Play and App Store to sell their apps. It is no secret that Japanese game developers and app developers are a different breed. Coming from a very competitive market, and a marketing culture which is famous for being persistent and patient, Japanese app developers can wait a long time till the rest of the world starts to appreciate their style and genre of games.
For now, app developers from outside of Japan have a way to get into the Japanese market, and they should take advantage of it. Of course, it is not a simple matter of placing an app on App Store and Google Play. There is still the matter of support, and if there is a central database for social gaming, then a cloud hosting service is still required. Getting into the Japanese market just got easier, but with staying and competing, app developers need all the help they can get.
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About the Guest Author:
Rodolfo Lentejas, Jr. is a fulltime freelance writer based in Toronto. He is the founder of the PostSckrippt, a growing online writing business dedicated to producing top quality, original and fresh content. To know more about him, please visit
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