Access Business Analytics
So you want to be big in Japan? What does it take to promote your brand in the country and how can you avoid being seen as a sub-par performer in a market widely known for its expectations for excellence?
The Japanese market is an attractive prospect for foreign companies. As of 2021, Japan accounts for 5.7% of the world’s online economic potential, despite having just 2.8% of the global Internet-connected population. Although both these numbers have fallen somewhat since 2017 in the face of more rapid growth in other economies, Japanese has retained its slot as the sixth-most-valuable language world-wide*. Japan’s per-capita GDP exceeds that of 89% of the world’s population and its relative linguistic homogeneity makes the Japanese language highly effective in reaching this market. These factors make it a prime target for high-value consumer goods. However, outsiders seeking to enter the market face robust competition from brands based in Japan that have global reputations for excellence. In addition, consumers in the country are well-known for their demand for top-notch quality in all aspects of their products.
These quality requirements pose a challenge for marketers and product developers. They end up paying top prices for translation, but often find that the results fall short. Our report “Ensuring Japanese Linguistic Quality” examines some of the common mistakes that content creators make and ways to address them. Key takeaways include:
Japanese may have a reputation for being a complex and challenging language, but there is no reason you should not succeed in localizing for the market with a little knowledge and care. As long as you do not treat localization as an afterthought, but instead have a concrete plan for how to address the market, you can succeed in Japan. The seven steps in this blog post will help you get started, but if you want to move to the next step and learn about how to improve your success in Japanese localization, consult “Ensuring Japanese Linguistic Quality.” * Readers may notice significant shifts in some numbers since a previous version of this post in 2017. In 2019 we added additional economic and demographic factors that resulted in a more accurate accounting of the value of each language. Combined with rapid growth in China and some other large economies, we now assign a lower relative value to Japanese than we did in previous years. Despite these shifts, Japanese still retains its position as one of the most attractive and profitable language opportunities.
Senior Analyst
Focuses on language technology, artificial intelligence, translation quality, and overall economic factors impacting globalization
It’s the end of 2023 and, rather than contemplating a bright and happy new year, many enterprise lo...
Some people feel that using artificial intelligence (AI) to interpret human speech is a curse becaus...
National variants of multinational languages such as English, French, and Spanish underscore the cha...
All companies have many regulations and business requirements to comply with today – plus additiona...
For the last few months pundits across the political spectrum have written op-ed columns and long ar...
In the late 19th century my great-grandfather, Otto, smuggled the culture for Gruyère cheese from Sw...
Posts by CSA_Research