SoftBank is making an effort! Korean e-commerce giants Naver and Coupang may become Japanese business partners

According to South Korea's PulseNews , SoftBank Group, Coupang's largest shareholder ( holding 37% ) and Naver's business partner, revealed plans to introduce Coupang 's services to Japan.

Naver 's Japanese messaging app operator Line and Japanese internet portal Yahoo Japan just completed their merger earlier this month and unified them under SoftBank's Z Holdings . In other words, the two Korean e-commerce giants Naver and Coupang may become partners in the Japanese market .

According to data from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan, the scale of Japan's business-to-consumer e-commerce market reached 19.36 trillion yen in 2019. In the past 10 years, Japan's e-commerce market has maintained an average annual growth rate of nearly 10% . However, online shopping only accounts for 10.4% of the retail market , far lower than South Korea's 35.8%. Coupled with the strong purchasing power of the elderly, this new market in Japan still has huge growth potential .

As far as the current Japanese e-commerce market is concerned, it is mainly dominated by Amazon.jp , followed by Rakuten , Yahoo Shopping and Qoo10.jp . Yahoo Japan, owned by SoftBank Group , lags behind Amazon and Rakuten .

Therefore, Yahoo Japan operator Z Holdings teamed up with Line's parent company Naver last year and announced a management integration.

In June this year , Z Holdings will launch an instant messaging business that integrates Line, which has 80 million users in Japan , and Smart Store. In addition, Yahoo is also seeking a cooperative business model that integrates Yahoo Shopping, Yahoo Portal and PayPay. However, these cooperative methods all use existing delivery systems.

These plans may gain more momentum when Coupang joins the fray. Unlike Naver, Coupang has a strong direct delivery service. Thanks to fast delivery, Coupang's main delivery items are daily necessities, including groceries.

Industry analysts pointed out that Z Holdings could take a dual-track approach - offering non-grocery goods such as fashion products through Smart Store and groceries through Coupang's services.

However, in SoftBank's statement on Tuesday, Masayoshi Son's comments to some extent mean that SoftBank may be considering providing a courier delivery service similar to Coupang, rather than Coupang's launch in Japan.

However, even if Coupang 's fast delivery service enters overseas markets through Z Holdings, Naver and Coupang, the two biggest competitors in the Korean e-commerce market, will still have the opportunity to cooperate and become business partners in Japan, the fourth largest e-commerce market .

SoftBank

Yahoo Japan

E-commerce market