How to Research a Japanese Company Online

When a Japanese company becomes a possible supplier, partner, customer or competitor, the first search usually happens in English. Sometimes that is enough. Often it is not: the English website may be a short summary, English news coverage may be thin, and the details you need are published only in Japanese.

This guide explains how to check a Japanese company using public sources, with a focus on the problems that come up when you are researching from outside Japan.

Decide what you need to know first

“Look into this company” can mean very different amounts of work. Before searching, write down the decision the research supports and the items you need for it. For example:

• Checking a potential supplier: Does the company exist as described? Where is it located? How long has it operated? What does it actually make or provide?
• Evaluating a partner: What are its main businesses, group structure and recent announcements?
• Understanding a competitor: What does it sell, to whom, and at what published prices?

A short list of questions keeps the research focused and makes it clear when you are done.

Step 1: Find the company’s official Japanese name

Most problems in Japanese company research start with the name. A company’s English name and its registered Japanese name can look unrelated, and machine translation of a Japanese name rarely produces the name the company itself uses.

The registered Japanese name normally includes the type of company. The most common types are:

• 株式会社 (kabushiki kaisha) — a stock company. In English it may appear as “Co., Ltd.”, “Inc.”, “Corporation” or “K.K.”, depending on the company’s own choice.
• 合同会社 (gōdō kaisha) — often rendered as “G.K.” or “LLC”.
• 有限会社 (yūgen kaisha) — a form that can no longer be newly established since the Companies Act took effect in 2006, although many existing companies still operate under it.

The company type can appear before or after the name: 株式会社サンプル and サンプル株式会社 are different strings, and a search for one may not surface the other.

Good places to find the official Japanese name are the Japanese version of the company’s website (usually linked from the English site), the footer or copyright line, the company profile page, and the company’s own press releases.

Step 2: Read the Japanese company profile page

Most Japanese corporate websites have a company profile page, typically labeled 会社概要, 企業情報 or 会社案内. It usually presents basic facts in a table. Common items include:

This page is the company’s own description. It is the right place to confirm what the company says about itself, but figures such as employee numbers may be out of date, and it may not say when they were last updated. Note any date shown next to a figure.

Compare the Japanese and English versions of the profile. English pages are sometimes shorter, older, or written for a different audience. When the two differ, check which one was updated more recently, and note the difference rather than picking one silently.

Step 3: Confirm the corporate number record

Japan’s National Tax Agency runs the Corporate Number Publication Site (法人番号公表サイト). Each corporation is designated a 13-digit corporate number, and the site publishes the number together with the corporation’s name and the address of its head office. It can also show the history of changes to the name or address.

This is useful for a few reasons:

• It confirms that a corporation with that name and address is on record.
• The corporate number lets you separate companies with the same or similar names.
• The change history can explain why older documents use a different name or address.

The site has English pages, and a corporation can register an English name, but many have not. In practice you will often need the Japanese name to search.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry also operates gBizINFO, which brings together corporate information held by government bodies — such as certain subsidies, government procurement awards and certifications — keyed by corporate number. What you find depends on the company; many entries contain little beyond the basic record.

Step 4: Check disclosures if the company is listed

If the company is listed on a Japanese stock exchange, much more information is public. Start with the investor relations section of its website, usually labeled IR情報, 投資家情報 or 株主・投資家の皆様へ.

Two official channels are also worth knowing:

• EDINET, operated by the Financial Services Agency, where companies subject to disclosure requirements file documents such as the Annual Securities Report (有価証券報告書). The report covers the business, segments, results, risks, employees and group companies.
• TDnet, the timely disclosure system operated by the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where listed companies publish announcements such as financial results and material events (適時開示).

Many listed companies publish some of this material in English, and English disclosure has been expanding. Coverage still varies by company and by document, and the Japanese version is often the more complete one.

Unlisted companies are a different matter. Many publish little or no financial information. If revenue or profit cannot be found in public sources, record that; do not estimate it from the company’s size or industry.

Step 5: Look at news and press releases

For recent developments, check the company’s own news pages, often called ニュース, お知らせ or プレスリリース. Many Japanese companies also distribute releases through press release services such as PR TIMES.

Keep company announcements and third-party reporting separate. A press release tells you what the company announced; a news article may add context, but it may also reflect the reporter’s interpretation. English news about Japanese companies is often a summary of Japanese reporting, so check the Japanese original when a detail matters.

Step 6: Use recruitment pages for context

Recruitment pages (採用情報) are often more detailed than the corporate site. They may describe business units, work locations, the kind of roles being hired, and where the company says it is heading. Japanese companies often separate new-graduate hiring (新卒採用) from mid-career hiring (中途採用), and the two can describe the business differently.

Treat this as the company’s own presentation. It is useful context, not independent evidence.

Pitfalls specific to researching Japanese companies

Similar names and group companies

Japanese company names are frequently shared or similar, and large groups have many related companies: a holding company (often with ホールディングス in its name), operating subsidiaries, and regional or functional affiliates. Information about the group can easily be attributed to the wrong entity. Match the corporate number and head office address before combining information from different sources.

Japanese era years

Company histories, older documents and some official records use Japanese era names instead of Western years. Converting them is straightforward once you know the rule:

For example, 平成15年 is 2003. The first year of an era is often written 元年 (gannen) instead of 1, so 令和元年 is 2019. Eras change partway through a year, so for dates near a transition, check the month as well.

Old information presented as current

Pages that are no longer maintained often stay online. Company names change, businesses are merged or sold, and offices move. Check when a page was published or updated, and prefer the company’s current official pages for anything you will rely on.

Translated text

Browser translation is useful for reading Japanese pages, but check names, numbers and units against the original. Large numbers in Japanese are counted in units of 万 (10,000) and 億 (100,000,000), and conversions are a common source of errors.

Record what you found and where

Keep each fact together with its source and the date you checked it. A simple table is enough:

Keep a row for items you looked for but could not confirm. “Not found in public sources” is a finding in its own right, and it prevents the gap from being filled in later with a guess.

If you are comparing several companies in the same market, the next step is usually their offerings and prices; see How to Research Competitors and Pricing in Japan. If you cannot locate a page you expect to exist, see How to Find Information on Japanese Websites.

If you need a Japanese company checked for you

Each step above is manageable on its own. The time goes into doing it in Japanese: confirming names, reading profile pages and filings, telling similar companies apart, and keeping track of where every fact came from. When there are several companies to check, the work multiplies.

optimal plan SEARCH’s Japan Research Service researches Japanese-language websites and public sources on your behalf, verifies the findings, and delivers them as an English report with source links wherever possible. Anything we could not confirm is reported as not confirmed, rather than filled in with guesses.

You can describe your question in English. You don’t need to know the Japanese search terms or where to look.