Expert on Japan Retail and Consumer Markets, JapanConsuming

Michael Causton

Expert on Japan Retail and Consumer Markets

Real Insight on Japanese Consumer Markets

JapanConsuming

JapanConsuming is a specialist research firm producing intelligence on Japanese retail and consumer markets. Founded in 2000, JapanConsuming has become the leading provider of insights on Japanese retailers and consumer trends to retailers, brands, government agencies and investors. As well as a highly regarded monthly report on the market, JapanConsuming produces in-depth reports on retail sectors, seminars on key trends and telephone consulting to investors on trends and retailers.

JapanConsuming was founded by Michael Causton and Roy Larke. 

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<p>The following is a review of how physical retailers are progressing online and includes a unique ranking of the TOP 50 Online Retailers by sales, platforms sold on and growth.</p>
<p>Japanese retailers were famously behind peers in other markets to tackle e-commerce but many have caught up and become world class such as <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/fast-retailing-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:751:1" rel="noopener">Fast Retailing (9983 JP)</a> and <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/nitori-holdings-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:20386:1" rel="noopener">Nitori Holdings (9843 JP). </a></p>
<p>More worrying for those lagging behind such as <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/seven-i-holdings-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1041:1" rel="noopener">Seven &amp; I Holdings (3382 JP)</a>, estimates suggest that online will have some role in 50% of purchasing transactions by 2025.</p>
<p>Despite retailers' efforts, the big three online malls, Amazon, Rakuten and Yahoo! Shopping still control half of the e-commerce market for merchandise.</p>

The following is a review of how physical retailers are progressing online and includes a unique ranking of the TOP 50 Online Retailers by sales, platforms sold on and growth.
Japanese retailers were famously behind peers in other markets to tackle e-commerce but many have caught up and become world class such as Fast Retailing (9983 JP) and Nitori Holdings (9843 JP). 
More worrying for those lagging behind such as Seven &amp; I Holdings (3382 JP), estimates suggest that online will have some role in 50% of purchasing transactions by 2025.
Despite retailers' efforts, the big three online malls, Amazon, Rakuten and Yahoo! Shopping still control half of the e-commerce market for merchandise.

Tip of the Iceberg: Omnichannel 50% of Japan Retail in 2025

ASEAN Insight Provider, CrossASEAN Research

Angus Mackintosh

ASEAN Insight Provider

CrossASEAN Research

At CrossASEAN Research we strive to produce unbiased and differentiated on the ground insights on companies across South East Asia. Our Research is produced for the most part after face to face meetings and conversations with company management to dig deep into the long term vision and strategy of the companies we cover. We seek to deliver investable and actionable themes on sectors and markets across SE Asia, often in collaboration with other Insight Providers across the region, pooling the vast experience of the analysts within the Smartkarma Ecosystem. We also offer bespoke work and tailor made trips for our clients. 

Insights across South East Asia

Equity Bottom-Up

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<p><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/sea-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:8509:1" rel="noopener">Sea Ltd (SE US)</a> released a set of what can be described as blowout 4Q2020 and FY2020 results, with +103% growth YoY in total GAAP revenues in 4Q2020, +111% growth in total GAAP Digital Entertainment Revenues, and a spectacular +178% YoY growth in e-commerce revenues for 4Q2020. What was also highly encouraging was the company's guidance for FY2021, which seems well-ahead of analyst expectations, which will likely need to play catch up.</p>
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<p>The digital entertainment business saw a continued growth of its user base both in terms of quarterly active users and quarterly paying active users.</p>
<p>Bookings for the digital entertainment business were US$1bn, up +111% whilst adjusted EBITDA came in at US$663.5m, up by +149.1% YoY.</p>
<p>The company's self-developed game <em>Free Fire </em>was the most downloaded mobile game globally in 2020, maintaining its pole position for the second year running.</p>
<p>In the e-commerce business, the company registered a +135% growth in gross orders to 1,0233.2m and +113% growth in gross merchandise orders (GMV) to US$11.9bn.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/sea-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:8509:1" rel="noopener">Sea Ltd (SE US)</a> is also seeing increasing adoption of its Sea Money offerings with its mobile wallet generating US$2.9bn in transaction value in 4Q2020 and 23.2m quarterly paying users.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/sea-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:8509:1" rel="noopener">Sea Ltd (SE US)</a> has also acquired a 100% stake in Composite Capital Management, a Hong Kong licensed global investment management firm founded and led by David Ma. This will effectively become an incubator for the company's investments.</p>
<p>The company has also recently appointed Dr Yan Shuicheng as its Chief Science Officer to build and lead Sea AI Labs. He is a leading expert in developing artificial intelligence, with a key focus on computer vision, machine learning, and multimedia analysis.</p>
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<section class="figure">For FY2021 guidance, the company is expecting significant sales growth for both digital entertainment and e-commerce, which suggests numbers significantly above current analyst expectations.</section>


Sea Ltd (SE US) released a set of what can be described as blowout 4Q2020 and FY2020 results, with +103% growth YoY in total GAAP revenues in 4Q2020, +111% growth in total GAAP Digital Entertainment Revenues, and a spectacular +178% YoY growth in e-commerce revenues for 4Q2020. What was also highly encouraging was the company's guidance for FY2021, which seems well-ahead of analyst expectations, which will likely need to play catch up.

The digital entertainment business saw a continued growth of its user base both in terms of quarterly active users and quarterly paying active users.
Bookings for the digital entertainment business were US$1bn, up +111% whilst adjusted EBITDA came in at US$663.5m, up by +149.1% YoY.
The company's self-developed game Free Fire was the most downloaded mobile game globally in 2020, maintaining its pole position for the second year running.
In the e-commerce business, the company registered a +135% growth in gross orders to 1,0233.2m and +113% growth in gross merchandise orders (GMV) to US$11.9bn.
Sea Ltd (SE US) is also seeing increasing adoption of its Sea Money offerings with its mobile wallet generating US$2.9bn in transaction value in 4Q2020 and 23.2m quarterly paying users.
Sea Ltd (SE US) has also acquired a 100% stake in Composite Capital Management, a Hong Kong licensed global investment management firm founded and led by David Ma. This will effectively become an incubator for the company's investments.
The company has also recently appointed Dr Yan Shuicheng as its Chief Science Officer to build and lead Sea AI Labs. He is a leading expert in developing artificial intelligence, with a key focus on computer vision, machine learning, and multimedia analysis.



For FY2021 guidance, the company is expecting significant sales growth for both digital entertainment and e-commerce, which suggests numbers significantly above current analyst expectations.

Sea Ltd (SE US) - Metamorphosis in Motion

<p>Penetration (the share of total retail sales) of e-commerce in Japan increased sharply in the past few years but still varies significantly by category.</p>
<p>The following insight looks at each consumer product category and how penetration has grown in the last few years and provides estimates of trends to 2025.</p>
<p>Even with these relatively cautious rates of growth, penetration rates are set to expand significantly in apparel, household &amp; interior, books &amp; media, and stationery but only retailers with form in successful online marketing will benefit from this with major negative implications for the many retailers that have failed to tackle the threat from online. This includes even major retailers like <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/seven-i-holdings-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:1041:1" rel="noopener">Seven &amp; I Holdings (3382 JP)</a> which lags behind <a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/aeon-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:3:1" rel="noopener">Aeon Co Ltd (8267 JP), </a><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/rakuten-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:31:1" rel="noopener">Rakuten Inc (4755 JP)</a><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/aeon-co-ltd" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:3:1" rel="noopener">  and </a><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/entities/amazon-com-inc" target="_blank" data-smartkarma-citation="entities:409:1" rel="noopener">Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US)</a> in the race to lead the battle for leadership in online food retailing.</p>

Penetration (the share of total retail sales) of e-commerce in Japan increased sharply in the past few years but still varies significantly by category.
The following insight looks at each consumer product category and how penetration has grown in the last few years and provides estimates of trends to 2025.
Even with these relatively cautious rates of growth, penetration rates are set to expand significantly in apparel, household &amp; interior, books &amp; media, and stationery but only retailers with form in successful online marketing will benefit from this with major negative implications for the many retailers that have failed to tackle the threat from online. This includes even major retailers like Seven &amp; I Holdings (3382 JP) which lags behind Aeon Co Ltd (8267 JP), Rakuten Inc (4755 JP)  and Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US) in the race to lead the battle for leadership in online food retailing.

E-Commerce Penetration Increasing in All Retail Categories

Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs, Douglas Research Advisory

Douglas Kim

Korea/Asia, Events, IPOs

Equity Capital Markets

<p><strong>Tuya</strong> is one of the global leaders in the IoT based software products and solutions. In 2020, Tuya powered over 116.5 million smart devices, making Tuya the largest IoT PaaS business in the global market of IoT PaaS in terms of the volume of smart devices powered.</p><p>Established in 2014, the Hangzhou, China based Tuya plans to list on the NYSE. Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, and CICC are the joint bookrunners in this IPO. The company has put the IPO placeholder at $100 million but this could be raised to as much as <a href="http://www.aastocks.com/en/stocks/news/aafn-news/NOW.1075476/3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1 billion. </a></p><p>Similar to how smartphones and mobile connectivity has changed the world in the past decade, there is a huge amount of interest in<strong> IoT (Internet of Things)</strong> driven technology which is just starting to get penetrated in businesses around the world. Similar to how smartphones have allowed millions of people to be better "connected", the IoT technology will now enable the "machines to be connected" to the network, enabling greater business efficiencies and new revenue opportunities. </p><p>The company generated revenue of $179.9 million (up 70% YoY) and gross profit of $61.9 million (up 122.8% YoY) in 2020. Gross margin of the company improved from 26.3% in 2019 to 34.4% in 2020. Loss from operations as a percentage of revenue improved from -69.4% in 2019 to -38.8% in 2020.</p>

Tuya is one of the global leaders in the IoT based software products and solutions. In 2020, Tuya powered over 116.5 million smart devices, making Tuya the largest IoT PaaS business in the global market of IoT PaaS in terms of the volume of smart devices powered.Established in 2014, the Hangzhou, China based Tuya plans to list on the NYSE. Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, and CICC are the joint bookrunners in this IPO. The company has put the IPO placeholder at $100 million but this could be raised to as much as $1 billion. Similar to how smartphones and mobile connectivity has changed the world in the past decade, there is a huge amount of interest in IoT (Internet of Things) driven technology which is just starting to get penetrated in businesses around the world. Similar to how smartphones have allowed millions of people to be better "connected", the IoT technology will now enable the "machines to be connected" to the network, enabling greater business efficiencies and new revenue opportunities. The company generated revenue of $179.9 million (up 70% YoY) and gross profit of $61.9 million (up 122.8% YoY) in 2020. Gross margin of the company improved from 26.3% in 2019 to 34.4% in 2020. Loss from operations as a percentage of revenue improved from -69.4% in 2019 to -38.8% in 2020.

Head of Research, IPOs & Placements, Aequitas Research

Sumeet Singh

Head of Research, IPOs & Placements

IPOs and Placements coverage across Asia Pacific

Aequitas Research

We cover all listing across the Asia Pacific along with follow-up placements. As of Dec 2020, our team had covered 539 IPOs with a hit rate of 73.5% and 685 placements with a hit rate of 66.8%.

We combine fundamental bottom-up views with our proprietary quantitative framework to provide a holistic coverage across new listings and placements. Our coverage includes pre-IPO notes before the deal is launched, follow-up analysis once the deal is live and post-listing trading analysis as well.

<p>Coupang, one of the largest product e-commerce players in Korea, aims to raise up to US$3.6bn in its US listing via a mix of selling primary and secondary shares. In this note, we’ll talk about the lock-up, index inclusion and run the deal through our framework.</p><div><p>Coupang offers its 14.8m customers a wide range of owned-inventory selection. In addition, on its marketplace it also offers millions of SKUs sourced from over 200,000 merchants. Apart from normal e-commerce operation, it also provides its customers with: grocery offering, Rocket Fresh; logistics food delivery offering, Coupang Eats; and digital financial services, Coupang Pay.</p></div><div><p>I've covered various aspects of the deal in my earlier insights: </p></div><div><ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li>
<a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/coupang-pre-ipo-the-positives-fast-growth-sticky-customers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coupang Pre-IPO - The Positives - Fast Growth, Sticky Customers</a>, </li>
<li><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/coupang-pre-ipo-the-negatives-horrendous-data-disclosures-including-no-mention-of-ott-launch" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coupang Pre-IPO - The Negatives - Horrendous Data Disclosures, Including No Mention of OTT Launch</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/coupang-pre-ipo-fair-bit-of-competition-but-it-s-doing-better-than-most-local-peers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coupang Pre-IPO - Fair Bit of Competition but It’s Doing Better than Most Local Peers</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.smartkarma.com/insights/coupang-pre-ipo-earnings-forecast-and-valuation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coupang Pre-IPO - Earnings Forecast and Valuation</a></li>
</ul></div>

Coupang, one of the largest product e-commerce players in Korea, aims to raise up to US$3.6bn in its US listing via a mix of selling primary and secondary shares. In this note, we’ll talk about the lock-up, index inclusion and run the deal through our framework.Coupang offers its 14.8m customers a wide range of owned-inventory selection. In addition, on its marketplace it also offers millions of SKUs sourced from over 200,000 merchants. Apart from normal e-commerce operation, it also provides its customers with: grocery offering, Rocket Fresh; logistics food delivery offering, Coupang Eats; and digital financial services, Coupang Pay.I've covered various aspects of the deal in my earlier insights: 

Coupang Pre-IPO - The Positives - Fast Growth, Sticky Customers, 
Coupang Pre-IPO - The Negatives - Horrendous Data Disclosures, Including No Mention of OTT Launch
Coupang Pre-IPO - Fair Bit of Competition but It’s Doing Better than Most Local Peers
Coupang Pre-IPO - Earnings Forecast and Valuation


Coupang IPO - Momentum Play, Unequal Lock-Up, Index Inclusion

United States

Amazon.com, Inc. is an online retailer that offers a wide range of products. The Company's products include books, music, videotapes, computers, electronics, home and garden, and numerous other products.  Amazon offers personalized shopping services, Web-based credit card payment, and direct shipping to customers.

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Amazon.com Inc (AMZN US)

Tip of the Iceberg: Omnichannel 50% of Japan Retail in 2025

We have compiled a unique ranking of the top 50 E-commerce retailers in Japan and provide an analysis of winners and losers among retailers now and...

Michael Causton

Sea Ltd (SE US) - Metamorphosis in Motion

Sea Ltd continues to achieve higher than expected rates of growth both for its digital entertainment and e-commerce business, with digital...

Angus Mackintosh

E-Commerce Penetration Increasing in All Retail Categories

A review of online market share in all key consumer categories in Japan, with forecasts for e-commerce market share to 2025 –the sharp growth will...

Michael Causton

Tuya IPO Preview - An IoT Powerhouse

Tuya is one of the global leaders in the IoT based software products and services. This IPO could be in hot demand, especially among investors that...

Douglas Kim

Coupang IPO - Momentum Play, Unequal Lock-Up, Index Inclusion

Coupang aims to raise up to US$3.6bn in its US listing via selling primary and secondary shares. In this note, we’ll talk about the lock-up, index...

Sumeet Singh

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