---
title: "Japan's century-old firms: why newcomers can't move customers"
description: "Half the world's century-old companies are in Japan. Not tradition but access control: channels and customer ties sit with the old houses. Borrow, don't fight."
image: https://nobusato.jp/hubfs/country-of-century-old-companies-en.png
---

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[Japan by the Numbers](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/tag/japan-by-the-numbers)

# The country with the most century-old companies: why newcomers can't move customers

[Nobu Sato](https://nobusato.jp/en/profile?hsLang=en)

![The country with the mostcentury-old companies](https://nobusato.jp/hs-fs/hubfs/country-of-century-old-companies-en.png?width=1200&height=630&name=country-of-century-old-companies-en.png)

**Series「Five numbers to read before entering Japan」** · Part 2 of 5

In 2022 Nikkei BP counted companies worldwide founded more than a hundred years ago: 74,037, of which 37,085, or 50.1%, were in Japan. Second was the US with 21,822. Teikoku Databank's end-2025 update puts Japanese companies with over a century of history at 46,708, or 3.11% of all firms, with 1,836 over two hundred years old and 11 over a thousand.

Three out of every hundred Japanese companies are older than your grandfather.

## The usual reading: longevity and tradition

The number is usually told as a culture story: Japanese value continuity, craftsmanship, the family business. None of it is false, and none of it is actionable for a company entering the market.

Ask a different question: what did these forty-odd thousand companies survive on? Teikoku's industry breakdown is the clue: manufacturing 24%, retail 22%, wholesale 21%, nearly 70% between them. Wholesale deserves attention. A wholesaler that has lasted a century has kept its upstream and downstream relationships for a century too.

Japan37,085 · 50.1%United States21,822 · 29.5%All others15,130 · 20.4%74,037 worldwide · Nikkei BP 2022

**Fig.1**Half of the world's century-old companies are in Japan. Teikoku Databank's end-2025 update: 46,708 in Japan, 3.11% of all firms.

## The method's reading: access control, live

When I draw a market map, a company makes the list for one of three reasons: talent overlap, business threat, or access control. The first two are obvious. The third is often missed: some companies don't compete with your product, but they hold what you must pass through to reach the market. Channels, customer relationships, seats on trade associations, a voice in standards.

Japan's century-old companies are access control in concentrated form. A wholesaler that has operated for a hundred years holds a customer list that is the industry's customer list. A components maker of the same age holds a position in the trade association that shapes how standards get set. A newcomer arrives with a better product and finds the customer isn't comparing products. The customer is asking: I've had a forty-year relationship with my current supplier. What do you have?

This is the supply side of the time-and-trust point in [the previous post](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-inward-fdi-is-low?hsLang=en): customers are slow because the person across the table is a supplier who has already proven they'll stay.

## The action: don't attack head on

The entry decision this number changes is the definition of the target customer. The first version of most foreign entry plans targets "the companies currently buying from X" and goes after them with a better product at a lower price. In a market where century-old companies hold a third of the channels, that is the slowest and most expensive route.

Three alternatives. One: borrow their channels. What old houses lack is usually new product, not customers. Get your product into their catalog and let their forty-year relationships open doors. [Why distributors don't sell your product](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/sales-agent-network-japan?hsLang=en) is about making that actually happen. Two: serve their succession need. Another Teikoku figure: half of Japanese companies have no successor. The next generation of an old house often doesn't want it, and that is the window for an acquisition or deep partnership. Buying an old company with licenses, customers and channels is far faster than building from zero. Three: serve their digitization need. A hundred-year-old wholesaler's systems often stopped twenty years ago, while its customer relationships can't be bought at any price.

## Using it on the map

When drawing the market map, add a dedicated column: which companies in this industry are over fifty years old, and what does each hold. Most won't appear under "competitors," but they decide whether your product reaches customers. Of the three reasons for inclusion in [Picking the wrong competitors](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/picking-the-wrong-competitors?hsLang=en), the third exists for them.

## Check yourself

In the industry you're entering, how many of the top ten channels are century-old companies? Are they on your market map, or just outside your competitor list?

Sources

- [帝国データバンク 全国「老舗企業」分析調査（2025年）：業歴100年超 46,708社、老舗出現率3.11%](https://www.tdb.co.jp/report/economic/20260327_shinise2025/)
- [日経BPコンサルティング 周年事業ラボ「世界の長寿企業ランキング」（2022年）：創業100年以上 74,037社のうち日本 37,085社（50.1%）](https://consult.nikkeibp.co.jp/shunen-lab/)

**In this series**  
Previous：[A good market that is hard to enter: how low Japan's inward FDI is](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-inward-fdi-is-low?hsLang=en)  
Next：[The average company president is over sixty. What that means if you're selling](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/presidents-average-age-sixty?hsLang=en)

---

Shorter notes that don't make it into a full article go on LinkedIn. [Follow me there](https://www.linkedin.com/in/realnobusato/).

## More in this column

- ### [Is LinkedIn Useful in Japan? What the Numbers Say](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/is-linkedin-useful-in-japan?hsLang=en)
  
  LinkedIn reported 3 million members in Japan in 2022, about 4% of a 70 million labor force. Small, but dense in foreign ...
- ### [How Good Is English in Japan, Really?](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-english-proficiency?hsLang=en)
  
  Japan ranks 96th on the EF English index, yet a quarter of TOEIC takers score 745+. Neither measures the workplace. ...
- ### [Japan's 3-Year Graduate Turnover, Taken Apart](https://nobusato.jp/en/blog/japan-graduate-turnover-3-years?hsLang=en)
  
  About 3 in 10 Japanese graduates leave their first employer within three years, at an even pace each year. The real ...

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