Japan’s sharing economy limps behind China

Bloomberg

Feel like sharing? Japan might not be your place.Once home to the world’s biggest technology drivers in the 1980s, Japan has missed the boat when it comes to expanding its sharing-economy sector. Miles behind the US and dwarfed by China by more than two thousand to one, Japan’s sharing economy is also smaller than that of other developed economies such as the UK and France. The companies it does have in this fast-growing area are like Davids to the Goliaths of San Francisco-based Uber Technologies Inc. and Didi Chuxing, the Chinese ride-sharing company with users in more than 400 cities across the country.
Space Market Inc. and Sharingtechnology.Inc are among the more modest success stories produced by Japan.Space Market, which helps people share room in everything from offices to wedding venues and temples, secured an additional $3.5 million of financing last year from investors including Mizuho Capital Co. and
has expanded its listings 10-fold to more than 8,000 since being founded in 2014. Sharingtechnology.Inc matches those seeking and providing household services including cleaning and was listed on the Tokyo and Nagoya stock exchanges in August.
A preliminary estimate of operating profit for the 12 months ended September showed a sixfold jump from the previous year. But don’t expect Japan’s sharing economy to start replicating the kind of scale or success that the nation’s big manufacturing exporters have shown in recent years.With a history of sharing through communal living and a more active startup culture, China’s sharing economy was $530 billion in 2016, or 4.6 percent of GDP.