As announced on our corporate website, on November 1, 2024, we began a business partnership with Lelelab, a Shanghai-based keyboard brand.
The world really is a small place, and the partnership with Keyreative has led to interest from keyboard-related companies in the area.
Currently, we are only partnering with them in performance-based advertising, but we hope to support their expansion into Japan in some way, based on future developments.
Recently, I have had the opportunity to interact with a relatively large number of foreign keyboard brands.
One thing they always say is that “Japan is attractive, but difficult.
(1) Overseas mail order is not yet common, and it is difficult for products to spread without going through a distributor, and (2) the majority of the population uses their own layout (Japanese layout), unlike the ANSI layout that is the mainstream in China and Korea, which creates a high hurdle for acceptance of overseas products. I personally have the impression that there is a complex intertwining of factors that make it difficult to distribute products.
I still feel that the sequencing issue is very significant.
According to data from this site, Windows is still the dominant OS market share in Japan.
In the Japanese version of Windows, the default keyboard is set to “Japanese layout” and is not recognized as “English layout” when an English layout keyboard is connected.
The device will be recognized as an “English layout” only after the settings are changed and the device is rebooted. However, considering the cost of switching from the familiar Japanese layout in the first place, there is no factor that would make the average user willingly choose an English layout.
As for Macs, it is possible to use both English and Japanese layouts at the same time, but it is better to use the layout that you are familiar with.
Kawamura*Excludes races in the homebrew keyboard community.
Perhaps there are a lot of people in this neighborhood who are good at everything.
From a general perspective, I feel that the easiest way for a foreign brand to establish a presence in Japan is to prepare “the most popular array in Japan.
We would like to share and talk about this area.
