The volume of the Japanese mobile app market is 10% larger than the American one

In terms of revenue from mobile markets, the Country of the Rising Sun has overtaken the United States. This happened thanks to the rapid growth in the number of smartphones and tablets.

Recall that a year ago, Japan lagged behind other countries in terms of the penetration of smartphones and tablets. The whole reason was that since the late 90s, original mobile phones were widely distributed in the country, ahead of the first smartphones in functionality, which appeared only at the end of the noughties. For this reason, the process of switching to smartphones in Japan took longer than in other regions.

Now this transition is still ongoing (some companies still earn from mobile phones). However, in October, Japanese users spent 10% more on smartphone and tablet apps than American users. This is three times more than the Koreans spent over the same period and six times more than the British. 

Once again, for comparison: a year ago, the Japanese spent 40% less on mobile content than Americans. 

Mobile games have become the main driver of revenue growth itself. According to The Wall Street Journal with reference to App Annie, Japanese gamers began to spend four times more on games than a year ago.

In terms of revenue, the Japanese App Store and Google Play are almost the same. 

According to the forecast of Peter Varman, executive director of Newzoo, the Japanese mobile games market may well “bite off” 26% of the global market of $12.2 billion by the end of the year. For the USA, according to his estimates, there will be only 25%. And this is despite the fact that there are three times more mobile players in the States.

A source: http://online.wsj.com