Companies
Iris Ohyama Undercuts the Giants
The Sendai company that hired the engineers Japan's appliance majors let go - and rebuilt the value shelf
Keyword
The Sendai company that hired the engineers Japan's appliance majors let go - and rebuilt the value shelf
How a 1918 vacuum-flask maker from Osaka became the global benchmark for cooking rice — and why its elephant mark still sells at a premium abroad.
How a 1946 Tokyo lab grew through Sekkisei, DECORTÉ and Albion to become Japan's #2 cosmetics maker — and how the 2014 Tarte acquisition extended its reach into US millennial color cosmetics.
How a 1948 Chiba bakery became Japan's #1 bread and confectionery maker — supplying ~50% of konbini bread under its own brand and private label — and how Daily Yamazaki ~600 stores plus Vie de France give it both supply chain and retail control.
Why the yellow MatsuKiyo signage in Ginza, Shinjuku and Shibuya makes Matsukiyo Cocokara — formed from the 2021 Matsumoto Kiyoshi + Cocokara Fine merger — Japan's most tourist-channel-exposed drugstore, and how that differs from Welcia and Tsuruha's suburban dispensing model.
Inside the Hokkaido-born ~2,500-store federation — and the 2024 Welcia merger, prompted by Seth Fischer's Oasis Management, that will reshape Japan's distribution channels for foreign cosmetics, OTC and food brands.
How a single Ibaraki pharmacy became Asia's drugstore king-in-waiting — and why the 2027 Welcia-Tsuruha integration reshapes Japan's $80B pharmacy market.
How a Sapporo-founded furniture and home-goods retailer built the SPA manufacturing-retailer model, recorded ~36 consecutive years of profit growth — Japan's stock-market record — and quietly expanded across Asia.
Inside Don Quijote — late-night, compressed-display, tax-free-tourist anchor — and how its DON DON DONKI Asia format became the rare Japanese retail concept that actually travels.
How Japan's #2 convenience-store chain became a wholly-owned Itochu Corporation subsidiary in 2020, and what the take-private rewrote about konbini-shosha integration, private label and Asia.
How Japan's #3 convenience-store chain became the most interesting take-private deal of 2024 — and why the 50/50 ownership between a sogo shosha and a telco rewrites what a konbini can be.
Inside the suburban mall federation that mirrors Japan's middle class — and is quietly building the largest shopping-mall network in ASEAN.