Experian launches Mosaic in Japan

Experian, the global information solutions company, has launched Mosaic Japan, a Japanese version of its award winning people classification system. Mosaic Japan classifies every Japanese household into 11 main groups and 50 different socio-economic types.

Mosaic Japan uses the Japanese National Census and a range of other statistical datasets to build a unique set of typologies and deliver detailed insight into the structure of Japanese society. The new system has been developed by Experian in association with Acton Wins, a Japanese lifestyle data specialist, and has taken over two years to develop.

The new typology is available at local area level and enjoys descriptive names such as Artisan Economy, Ancestral Homelands, Middle Japan, Fishing Ports, Inner City Tokyo, Nagaya Housing, Factory Towns, Coast and Mountain, Sprawling Infill, Osaka Terraces and Factory Accommodation.

Mosaic Japan is one of Experian’s 25 country-specific consumer classifications and joins similar systems in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, China, USA, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, France, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium, Eire and the UK.

Shihori Nakamura from Acton Wins, commented:
“Mosaic Japan will enable Japanese companies to gain intelligence on their existing customers and also to develop new markets for their products and services. Mosaic is also a key tool in retail site location and the system will help Japanese banks, retailers, and supermarkets to identify where to locate new branches and also plan their existing networks more effectively.”

Mosaic is widely used by organisations in the commercial and public sector to analyse the socio-economic composition of local neighbourhoods. It is a key tool in retail site location and is used by commercial organisations across the world to analyse potential and existing markets for products and services. Mosaic is also increasingly used by central and local governments to measure levels of deprivation and allocate resources more effectively.

A number of social trends in Japan and comparisons with Europe have been revealed through Mosaic Japan, including:

• The differences between the demographics of cities and those of small towns and countryside are far greater in Japan than in Europe. Commuters do not generally locate to country villages. Also, rural areas have many more old people than suburban neighbourhoods due to record levels of longevity in rural Japan. The contrast in earnings between cities and rural areas is far greater in Japan than in Europe.
• Due to lower levels of crime and public disorder in Japanese cities, inner city residential neighbourhoods attract people of much higher status than do equivalent areas in Britain and North America. The Japanese pattern of high status inner city living is similar to that of France, Spain and Italy. Poorer people live on the periphery of the city in less expensive housing and spend longer commuting.
• As in other countries, many more inner city residents are single and urbanites tend to marry later and have fewer children. Because most big old houses were destroyed in WW2, young people live in very small purpose built apartments and do not share big old houses with their friends as they do in Britain.
• Japan has very little social housing but what it does have looks very similar to social housing in Britain and France. As in Europe, this housing contains disproportionate numbers of low status immigrants. It also has disproportionate numbers of single parents. As in Europe a century ago, employers provide rented accommodation to their workers, particularly young singles who may have moved from another part of the country.
• Japanese land ownership makes it very difficult for national volume house builders to acquire large tracts of land on which to build speculative developments. Consequently, few Japanese streets would have houses of the same design and built at the same time. Each house is different to its neighbour. Many homeowners have sold off small parcels of land on which a new house could be built. Some have built and now rent out micro-apartments.

ENDS

For more information please contact:

Bruno Rost
Experian Press Office, Business Strategies division
Embankment House, Electric Avenue, Nottingham NG80 1EH
Tel: 0115 968 5009 or mobile 07967 567012
Email: bruno.rost@uk.experian.com.

About Experian

Experian is the global leader in providing value-added information solutions to organisations and consumers. It has an unrivalled understanding of individuals, markets and economies around the world.

Experian provides information, analytics, decision-making solutions and processing services. It assists organisations understand their markets and customers and helps them find, develop and manage profitable customer relationships to make their businesses more profitable.

Experian promotes greater financial health and opportunity among consumers by enabling them to understand, manage, protect their personal information, helping them control financial aspects of key life events and make the most advantageous financial decisions.

Experian works with more than 50,000 clients across diverse industries, including financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, insurance, retail and catalogue, automotive, manufacturing, leisure, utilities, e-commerce, property and government. A subsidiary of GUS plc with headquarters in Nottingham, UK, and Costa Mesa, California, Experian’s 12,000 people in 31 countries support clients in more than 60 countries. Annual sales are in excess of £1.4 billion.

For more information, visit the company’s website on www.experian.com.

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