Japanese flash coupon vertical search Coupon-JP has just released an April version of sales estimation of major social coupon services [J, pdf] after March report skipped by the quake.
Groupon Japan, which started by US Groupon purchasing a local clone last summer, has been leading the market but got damaged by terrible osechigate at the beginning of 2011. Coupon-JP’s January and February statistics showed its stagnation involving many other clones, and an ads-aggressive follower Ponpare’s catch-up.
By seeing it, there were people (including I) saying that Groupon model may not work for Japan like in US. I also heard some people in industry told that Recruit, who is said to run Ponpare with much lower commission than Groupon Japan, does not really want to succeed on Pompare, but tries to devastate the flash coupon market itself.
However, the April report gives good uptrends of Groupon Japan, 172% of February sales. Recruit Ponpare also recorded 190%. Their day-to-day sales chart gives you an idea how the big disaster affected first, then both gained a lot more sales even before that.
Nationwide jishuku(restraint and thrift) mentality arose after the disasters refrains people from spending money on anything expensive. That should work positively on coupon sales.
About other players, Ikkyu Coupon passed Toku and Sharee but none of their sales threaten the top 2 by numbers.
