Instagram is one of the largest social networks in the world as of 2019, and has been rapidly growing in Japan.

October 29, 2019 was Instagram Day in Tokyo, and the company held an event to announce the latest usage statistics and behaviors on the platform as well as new developments.

Instagram’s VP of Product, Vishal Shah, on Instagram’s mission.

First, some general information about Instagram as a whole:

500 million accounts use Stories every day

Instagram is very focused on furthering online shopping capabilities from in-app checkouts to new product launch methods

AR ads currently being tested will allow potential customers to engage with brands in ways such as “try-on” products (ex: lipstick)

The most used Sticker in Stories in 2018 was the Question Sticker, highlighting a desire to communicate

Instagram in Japan

Instagram’s monthly active Japan user growth chart.

Since March 2016, Instagram has more than tripled its monthly user base in Japan, and as of March 2019, has more than 33 million monthly active users in the country.

7 million Stories are uploaded each day in Japan.

Media contact for males (L) and females (R) in their 10s-30s in Japan: Mobile vs TV

People under 40 in Japan are highly active mobile users, so media reach is said to be better on mobile than on TV.

For males, mobile outdoes TV 40% to 27%. For females, mobile outdoes TV 45% to 33%.

Monthly Instagram usage in Japan for people between ages 18-29.

It was reported that users in Japan between the ages of 18 and 29 spend more than 100 million hours in the app each month. That’s an increase of +201% since 2017, way bigger of an increase compared to the usage of 4 other unnamed services.

One-day Instagram usage for 18-29 year olds in Japan.

The same demographic uses Instagram throughout their day, and the slide above breaks down their usage during the weekday.

From left to right: Wake up, early morning, breakfast time, late morning, lunch time, afternoon, early evening, dinner, late night, bed time.

83% of users in Japan “took action in the moment”

According to research, 83% of Instagram users in Japan have taken action right after seeing something on Instagram, although “action” wasn’t clearly defined. This likely is ranges between “clicking on website link” to “making a purchase”.

Instagram is considered a source of discovery.

Instagram is widely thought of as a place of discovery, information and inspiration.

It was reported that:

83% of users discover a new product or service on Instagram.
61% of users feel that Instagram keeps them up to date on current trends.
50% of users consider Instagram a source of inspiration.

Elaborating further, the trend of people starting to utilize Instagram as a search engine instead of Google has increased. There is an increase in looking to gain information by exploring Instagram’s tags (location tags, hashtags) rather than Googling.

This theme that Instagram is a “source of discovery” was highlighted in usage by young women in Japan. Compared to other unnamed, competing services, young women in Japan prefer using Instagram as an information source for fashion (44% to 8%), food spots (36% to 17%) and leisure spots (31% to 19%).

Japanese influencer, business owner and former HKT48 “idol” Yukos (@yukos0520) came out to talk about her experience growing on Instagram.

She highlighted that she realized there’s only so much “influence” she can have by posting nice pictures and cute selfies. She needed to consider what her audience cared about, searched, and then become able to address them in a speedy manner. This helped with her growth, and she now has 456k followers on Instagram with a 3.8% engagement rate as of Nov 2019.

This is good advice for anyone looking to reach some of the over 500 million people using Instagram every day.

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