About a year ago, I wrote an article on Asiajin that contained a list of Japan’s most valuable web companies by market capitalization. A lot has happened since then (thanks to the exchange rate we now have 12 large-cap companies instead of six, for example), so let's see how the list looks today.

I am using information from Netindex as reference, compare each company's rank with last year's position and provide English links in any case possible.

Notes:
The service also lists up companies that operate in non-Internet related fields as well.
No responsibility is taken for the correctness of this information.

List (rank and market cap in 2008 in brackets):
1. SoftBank - $23.7 billion (2. in 2008 with $21.9 billion) - Telecommunications and web services

2. Yahoo! Japan - $19 billion (1./$21.9 billion)

3. Rakuten - $8.3 billion (3./$6.1 billion) - Online shopping mall

4. Matsui - $2.6 billion (5./$2.1 billion) - Financial services

5. GREE - $1.9 billion (not listed in August 2008) - Mobile social gaming

6. DeNA - $1.5 billion (4./$2.3 billion) - Mobile web business and E-Commerce

7. kabu.com - $1.2 billion (8./$980 million) - Financial services (online only)

8. ACCESS - $1.2 billion (14./$520 million) - Mobile software and web development

9. eAccess - $1.1 billion (10./$740 million) - Broadband IP communication services

10. mixi - $1 billion (7./$980 million) - Social network and online employment services

11. Kakaku.com - $1 billion (12./$720 million) - Online price comparison

12. Monex Group - $1 billion (6./$1.2 billion) - Financial services

13. CyberAgent - $654 million(9./$880 million) - Web media and advertising

14. Gourmet Navigator - $640 million (13./$520 million) - Online restaurant information

15. Cookpad - $469 million (not listed in August 2008) - Online recipes

16. Internet Initiative Japan - $463 million (11./$740 million) - Internet connectivity services

17. GMO Internet - $430 million (15./$480 million) - Internet infrastructure and media business

18. Dwango - $345 million (19./$330 million) - Web content and systems provider

19. MTI - $303 (not in the top 20 last time) - Mobile web content

20. en-japan - $282 million (18./$340 million) - Online recruitment

Mobile web content providers Index Holdings (now 23.) and Zappallas (now 21.) dropped out of the top 20. Online marketing agency Opt fell from 16 to 24.

Author Information  Dr. Serkan Toto is a German based in Tokyo. Like us, he is passionate about introducing Japanese IT to the rest of the world. Full-time, Serkan works as an independent web industry consultant for hedge funds, venture capital companies and start-ups worldwide. He is also a writer for mega tech blog network TechCrunch, covering Japan-related technology and web trends. This is Serkan's website. Follow Serkan on Twitter here.

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