Japan Company Gz Brain has investigated about E-sports market 2018 in Japan and tried to predict the market size including a number of fans(watching competitions and videos) in 2022.
E-sports market in Japan has grown in 13 times comparing to 2017 up to 4.83 billion yen (42.5 million USD). Japan esports Union(JeSU) start issuing professional e-sports qualifications from February 2018. And related news on e-sports has increased dramatically. Even TVs are showing programs about e-sports with increasing sponsorship. Famous games such as Fortnite and PUBG have a significant increase in turnover regarding in-game purchases.
This report believes that Japan s-sports market would have average annual growth around 19.1% in 2019 to 2022. From major newspapers to game companies start hosting more and more e-sports competitions. Expenses on e-sports can be expected to increase with increasing market size. Japan E-sports Market may reach 9.94 billion yen (87.6 million USD) in 2022.
Sponsorships occupy 75.9% of the income total of e-sports events in 2018. Media show more interest in e-sports. More and more companies expressed tendency on sponsoring gaming competitions and teams. The direct income from tickets, souvenirs and broadcasting rights is also expected to grow due to the increase in e-sports competitions and e-sports fans.
In 2018, the number of Japanese e-sports fans (watching competitions and videos) has increased by 66% compared to last year, reaching 3.83 million. Projected by Gz Brain, about 25 million people are watching video games, and about 15% of them are from e-sports fans. By 2022, it's expected to grow to 7.86 million. Although compared with the e-sports market, the growth of e-sports fans is slower. In the future, game companies should be more active in e-sports with more and more e-sports competitions and TV broadcasts. The public will have more opportunities to watch the games leading the increase of e-sports fans.