New Japan Mobile App Trends 2023 report shows in-app spending increased by 13% during the first quarter of the year in Japan, with total 2023 spend predicted to surpass $17.7 billion

Leading measurement and analytics suite Adjust and mobile data analytics provider data.ai released a new report with mobile app trends and critical benchmarks for performance analytics in Japan. The first quarter of 2023 witnessed a surge in downloads, user engagement and consumer spending. Japanese app users spent $4.65 billion across all verticals — a remarkable 13% increase from the previous quarter — in Q1 and are expected to exceed $17.7 billion in spend this year. Mobile App Trends 2023: Japan edition also highlights a 7% growth in Japanese mobile installs compared to the Q4 2022 average, accompanied by a steady 9% year-over-year climb in sessions.

The report analyzes a mix of Adjust’s top 2,500+ apps and the total dataset of all apps tracked by Adjust, with a focus on mobile gaming, e-commerce, fintech and connected TV from January 2021 to March 2023. Additionally, the analysis is based on data.ai’s proprietary App IQ and Game IQ taxonomy — the world’s most comprehensive digital taxonomy for mobile apps with over 250,000 apps classified across 316 subgenres — across the e-commerce, gaming, fintech, social, travel, health & fitness, food and drink, entertainment, OTT, and photo and video editing categories.

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“With one of the highest adoption rates in the world and continually increasing spend across verticals, the opportunity for mobile marketers and developers in the Japanese mobile app market is enormous,” said Naoki Sassa, General Manager of Japan, Adjust. “Fierce competition, coupled with a complex economic climate and continually changing user needs and expectations, makes it essential to be ruthlessly data-driven and strategic. Now is the time to scale by building a diversified channel mix and leveraging tools that enable insight into aggregated data.”

Connected TV (CTV) is already a large part of mobile users’ journey. Currently, 70% of Japanese TV viewers have a CTV device, and CTV and OTT devices are expected to be owned by 30 million Japanese households by the end of 2023. This presents a wealth of opportunities for advertisers to reach new and engaged audiences, and to drive users from CTV apps to mobile devices or back to CTV apps themselves.

“CTV campaigns are set to become a fixture in app marketers’ user acquisition strategies, and early movers in Japanese CTV advertising stand to benefit greatly,” noted Gijsbert Pols, Ph.D., Director of Connected TV and New Channels at Adjust. “CTV offers better ad quality, a more captivated audience, precise targeting for users interests, measurement and optimization for engagement rates, impressions and click-through rates.”

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The report also examines data privacy, growth rates, retention rates and session lengths to provide insights for mobile marketers in the Japanese market. Highlights include:

• Japan’s progression toward a cashless society continues with digital payment apps capturing 77% of install share and sessions increasing 7% in Q1 2023 compared to Q4 2022. Meanwhile, crypto apps have exploded in popularity with significant growth in both installs and sessions, with a captive audience leading to a Day 1 retention rate of 28% in Q1 2023. Overall fintech app sessions increased by 17% in Q1 2023 compared to Q4 2022.
  
  
• Data privacy continues to be top of mind for Japanese mobile app users as evidenced by iOS App Tracking Transparency (ATT) opt-in rates below the global averages in nearly every vertical. Social apps exhibit the highest Japanese user opt-in rate (37%) followed by gaming (30%) and e-commerce (23%). The strong emphasis on data privacy in Japan’s mobile app landscape underscores the importance of a strong opt-in strategy, leveraging Adjust’s next-generation measurement solutions to provide an optimized and personalized user experience.
  
  
• Mobile gaming in Japan is making a slow but steady comeback in 2023 with 12% and 6% increases in installs and sessions, respectively, from Q4 2022 to Q1 2023. In Q1 2023, Japanese mobile gamers increased their spending on gaming apps significantly, with a 13% increase over Q4 2022. Puzzle games are extremely popular in Japan, accounting for 19% of all gaming sessions.
  
  
• E-commerce apps have showcased remarkable resilience, with deal discovery apps growing 24% YoY in 2022 and another 11% in Q1 2023 compared to Q4 2022. Notably, marketplace apps achieved an impressive Day 1 retention rate of 28% in Q1 2023, highlighting their strong appeal and user engagement. Although there was a dip in installs of e-commerce apps in general, sessions increased 5% YoY in 2022.

“As the industry continues to grow and user behavior shifts, building strong partnerships, leveraging innovative technologies and staying ahead of industry trends are key factors for unlocking tremendous growth opportunities,” said Toby Torii, Territory Director, Japan at data.ai. “With the right approach, mobile marketers can take their campaigns to the next level and capitalize on this exciting market’s enormous potential.”

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