Competition among companies in Japan is increasing as they seek to increase their economic clout through shared reward points that can be used across industries and businesses.
In April, Culture Convenience Club’s T-Point merged with Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group’s V Point to create the new V Point program. With a combined total of 150 million members, the new V Point is competing with rewards point programs from major telecommunications companies to become the most widely used program in daily life.
Japan’s rewards points market is marked by heightened competition among major players. E-commerce giant Rakuten Group’s Rakuten Point, telecom giant NTT Docomo’s d Point and Ponta Point all have around 100 million membership IDs. Ponta Point’s operating company’s shareholders include top companies such as trading house Mitsubishi, convenience store operator Lawson and telecom provider KDDI. Meanwhile, PayPay Point, linked to major telecom company SoftBank, had 64 million registered users with verified identities as of June.
