Economy

Online ads take majority share in Japan

Dentsu data shows fourth straight record ad market, newspapers keep shrinking as measurement wins budgets

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Total spending on advertisements in Japan hit a fourth straight record in 2025, with online ads surpassing 50% for the first time, a Dentsu survey showed. Total spending on advertisements in Japan hit a fourth straight record in 2025, with online ads surpassing 50% for the first time, a Dentsu survey showed. japantimes.co.jp
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As Japan accelerates AI adoption, policymakers and corporations frame the technology as essential to offsetting a projected labor shortfall of 11 million workers by 2040. As Japan accelerates AI adoption, policymakers and corporations frame the technology as essential to offsetting a projected labor shortfall of 11 million workers by 2040. japantimes.co.jp
Revitalizing rural Japan, one step at a time - Paul Christie Revitalizing rural Japan, one step at a time - Paul Christie japantimes.co.jp

Online advertising took a majority share of Japan’s ad market in 2025 for the first time, according to a Dentsu survey cited by The Japan Times. Total ad spending rose 5.1% to ¥8.06 trillion, while online ads climbed 10.8% to ¥4.05 trillion. Digital’s share hit 50.2%, as TV, newspapers, magazines and radio together slipped 1.6% to ¥2.30 trillion.

The shift is not simply “digitalisation” as a lifestyle trend; it is a migration of capital toward media where buyers can show their work. Social media and online video, Dentsu said, were the main growth engines—formats built around auctions, granular targeting and rapid feedback loops. When a campaign can be measured in clicks, conversions and repeat purchases, budget meetings stop being arguments about brand aura and become spreadsheets about cost per acquisition. That logic punishes channels where attribution is fuzzy and where pricing is defended with tradition rather than performance.

The market consequences run in two directions at once. On the supply side, online inventory is effectively endless: every feed refresh creates new ad slots. On the demand side, attention remains scarce, which pushes platforms to keep users scrolling and to squeeze more value out of each impression via data. The Japan Times notes that online ad growth is concentrated in social platforms and video; both are formats that reward surveillance-heavy targeting and constant experimentation. As more spend moves into systems that can prove incremental results, the pressure rises on advertisers to accept deeper tracking and on publishers to design content that performs inside those systems.

Traditional media’s decline is visible in the subcategories. Newspaper advertising fell 8.2% in 2025, Dentsu found, a drop that is difficult to offset with price rises when audiences are shrinking and advertisers can buy targeted reach elsewhere. Even “other” advertising—billboards, transit ads and flyers—grew 2.0% to ¥1.72 trillion, but that growth sits in a market increasingly dominated by software-driven buying. The result is a media economy where the most valuable asset is not the front page or the prime-time slot, but the ability to identify, segment and retarget the same person across devices.

Dentsu’s official said the 50% threshold arrived “sooner than expected,” crediting COVID-era changes. The number that matters is that Japan now spends more on ads that can be individually tracked than on the media built for mass audiences.

In 2025 Japan’s ad market set a fourth straight record. Newspapers still printed the pages, but the money moved elsewhere.