What a difference a year makes!

A little over a year ago, I started looking closely at the Japanese affiliate industry in terms of growth and progress. Initially our research showed a market that was both growing at a fast clip and hitting the usual pot holes that any industry encounters in the early stages of development. Back then we counted 30 affiliate networks in Japan with about 10% devoted to the mobile space. A year later we now count 80 networks and about 50% covering mobile media. The growth in the Japanese affiliate industry is impressive in light of the fact that the UK counts only 20 networks in total (Source: AffiliateSummit UK). How far will the Japanese affiliate market grow? It’s hard to say, we’re still seeing continued growth in the mobile area and no consolidation of the kind witnessed in the USA a few years ago. The mobile affiliate networks still have plenty of room for expansion. The average number of merchants running programs on a typical mobile network is about 100 (compared to 1000 merchants on a typical web network). The biggest challenge the mobile networks have is finding the media for their client programs. This I believe will become less of a problem as the Japanese mobile space continues to develop with more attractive content.