Japan Economy News

According to data released earlier today by the Japan Chain Stores Association, supermarket sales in Japan fell 1.2% to 1.05 trillion yen in July. Supermarket sales have now fallen for 20 consecutive months on a year-on-year comparison, though the rate of decline is slowing somewhat. Here is a breakdown of July’s adjusted same-store figures (not including [...]

According to data released today by the Japan Franchise Association, convenience store sales rose 0.5% in July, showing an increase for the first time in 14 months. The hot weather appears to have helped convenience store sales in July, as sales of cold drinks, ice cream and processed food increased 5.8%. Customer traffic was [...]

Ito En is currently Japan’s fourth ranked soft drink manufacturer. In third place is Kirin (Coca-Cola and Suntory, respectively, are #1 and #2). However, Ito En has slowly been sneaking up on Kirin’s market share and when private label production is included, Ito En actually outsold Kirin in the January-June period. According to Inryo Soken, which [...]

I’ve been working with Yahoo Pipes to create a single RSS feed that should provide coverage on Japan news without having to use multiple feeds and/or feed readers. This is obviously a work in progress and will be developed more in the weeks to come, but it’s a start: http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=f058da8a147191a9489391d3648f7e80&_render=rss It’s also being displayed in a (kinda [...]

The Nikkei is reporting that both Sony and Panasonic have seen about a 20% decrease in prices since launching their 3D television sets this past Spring. 3D televisions still cost about 30-50% more than their 2D flat screen counterparts. In terms of sales, 3D tellys account for 2.6% of sales of televisions 40 inches or [...]

Although Apple’s iPhone has thus far been sold exclusively in Japan by Softbank, Japan Communications intends to launch a service that will allow the iPhone 4 to tun on DoCoMo’s wireless network, according to various sources. This is good news, until one looks at the price tag. While a new iPhone is supplied for free [...]

‎”(There is) a growing recognition that the dispersion of credit risks to a broader and more diverse group of investors…has helped make the banking and wider financial system more resilient. The improved resilience may be seen in fewer bank failures and more consistent credit provision.” From the IMF’s (shortsighted) Global Financial Stability Review, April 2006 What rough [...]

A Nikkei report published today told us that Japan’s convenience stores experienced their second lowest annual growth in financial 2009 since 1978 as sales booms derived from the introduction of the TASPO card wore off. According to the paper: Overall sales at domestic convenience stores edged up 1.1% in fiscal 2009 to mark their second-weakest rise [...]

Earlier today, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Treasury David Cohen visited Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group to outline US financial sanctions against Iran. These sanctions were signed into law by US President Barack Obama on 1 July. The fact that Japan’s megabanks have yet to comply with US sanctions [...]

On Monday, the Nikkei published an article asserting that Western firms “are returning to the Japanese real estate market, taking proactive steps in the hope of big gains once the market improves.” This, of course, means that they are paying too much for real estate investments that will turn sour. The Nikkei article has a picture [...]