Japan

After a catastrophic year in 2020, bags and luggage players in Japan are experiencing another challenging year with multiple states of emergency and restrictions in 2021. Although restrictions on store operations were relatively light compared to ...

Against the background of a historically high stock market, high watches saw almost full current value sales recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. High watches returned much closer to 2019 sales levels in comparison to basic and mid ...

Almost one year since the COVID-19 pandemic first came to Japan, the first half of 2021 saw new infection waves and multiple states of emergency or soft lockdowns. Japan has taken soft measures, such as “requesting” people to refrain from going out ...

Writing instruments in Japan was already seeing current value decline prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, due to a shift to paperless operations and a declining birth rate. COVID-19 further had a heavy impact as schools closed during the state of the ...

There was some recovery seen over the 2020 holiday season, thanks to the relatively stable infection trends seen in autumn. However, jewellery in Japan largely struggled in the first half of 2021, with this following on from sharp current value ...

Japan is one of the key players in the autonomous vehicles market with numerous pilot projects being run. The autonomous vehicles market is expected to feed off the launch of 5G internet in 2020 and further strengthen the position of Japan as a ...

Although eyewear in Japan saw some recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, current value growth was not enough to reach 2019 levels prior to the pandemic. The third and the fourth waves of the pandemic hit Japan in the first and ...

Another wave of COVID-19 hit Japan in early-2021 and the Japanese government announced a third state of emergency at the end of April. Restrictions on store operation were not as strong as in 2020, when the government declared a state-wide emergency ...

Similar to other eyewear categories, spectacles struggled in 2020 and 2021 due to fluctuating store restrictions under the states of emergency imposed by the government over two continuous years. To respond to the unprecedented challenge, spectacles ...

A state of emergency was declared at the beginning of the summer season over two continuous years in 2020 and 2021, which certainly damaged consumers’ motivation to prepare for the summer. In 2021, a new type of COVID-19, N501Y, has become the major ...

Ice cream continued to see growth in current value and retail volume terms in 2020, with the category seeing record sales in Japan. This was the result of a result long-term effort by ice cream manufacturers in Japan to expand the consumer base and ...

Gum continues to suffer from the long-term decline in smokers, who are a key target audience for gum, and tough competition from other snacks such as mints and pastilles, gums, jellies and chews. These challenges combined with the large number of ...

While the COVID-19 pandemic negatively impacted impulse purchases, savoury snacks nevertheless enjoyed steady growth in 2020 driven by the demand created by home seclusion, with consumers stocking up on shelf-stable products. A second wave of ...

The impact of COVID-19 continues to be felt in Japan in 2021. At the begging of the year, prefectures with larger populations and key business areas, including Tokyo and Osaka, were forced into another state of emergency due to a sharp increase in ...

Due to the increasing demand for home cooking and snacking at home, many packaged food manufacturers in Japan have enjoyed strong sales since the COVID-19 pandemic started in Japan in February 2020. Sweet biscuits, snack bars and fruit snacks ...

In 2020, driven by COVID-19, products which are popular with office workers such as smaller packs of chocolate pouches and bags and countlines recorded a sharp decline in sales as employees switched to home working arrangements. Chocolate ...

Japan’s data privacy laws became stricter following the 2020 amendment to Japan’s data protection law (the Act on the Protection of Personal Information), although the amendment will not be enforced until April 2022. The amendments have increased the...

Sanitary protection is seeing growth globally, with developing markets accounting for the lion’s share of untapped potential and growth momentum. The performance is shaped by socioeconomic, demographic and lifestyle trends, as well as improvements in...

The outbreak of COVID-19 fundamentally changed the way consumers in Japan lived their lives during 2020. With restrictions imposed and government advice to avoid busy areas and to work from home where possible there was an increased reliance on the ...

The global economic outlook continues to improve in Q2 2021, though a two-speed recovery is taking shape as developed economies are set to bounce back quicker while the slow vaccine rollout in developing countries is delaying their recovery. The main...