According to industry trends (both anecdotal and empirical), the Japanese alternative data market is generally seen to be at an earlier stage of development than its European and US counterparts. This often leads to the portrayal of Japan as something akin to ‘The Land of the Untapped Alpha.’ In the following piece, we shed some light on the current state of the market by looking at 1) domestic demand for alternative data 2) challenges faced by local data providers (including both established players and start-ups), and 3) some unique sources of consumer spending data from this region.

First, the Reality Check

One significant contributing factor towards the nascent state of the Japanese alt data market is