Market Overview

The domestic business chat tool market size (based on the sales at businesses) in FY2022 has risen to 33,055 million yen, 129.7% of the size of previous fiscal year. The market for FY2023 is likely to see slower growth rate due to downturn from surge in demand amid COVID-19 crisis, reaching 36,330 million yen, 109.9% of the previous fiscal year.

From FY2020 to FY2021 amid the pandemic, business chat tools have been rapidly deployed at companies to enhance at-home working environment. Further increase in deployment in extensive industries and businesses has been observed in FY2022, after those tools evolved as a platform for improving work efficiency or for automating work processes to contribute to customers at site whose work cannot be done at home. Nevertheless, as COVID-19 has degraded to class 5 according to the Infectious Disease Control Law, companies have started to shift from at-home working to commuting, so that the growth rate of business chat tools is decelerating.

Noteworthy Topics

Spreading Both among Office Workers and Workers at Site

Conventionally, business chat tools spread mainly among office workers, but the COVID-19 crisis triggered the deployment among workers at site, such as for sale, logistics, medical, etc.

Not to mention in the workstyle reforms before COVID, in the situation where commuting became difficult when state of emergency was declared and shift was observed in the workstyle from commuting to working remotely, business chat tools were one of modules for preparing IT infrastructure.

On the other hand, for those workers at site such as for sale, logistics, medical and nursing care, etc., difficult to shift to at-home working, the tools might not have been beneficial. However, while the tools were used as the communication tool among office workers, they were started being deployed as the solution for work efficiency among workers at site.

Future Outlook

The business chat tool market has not yet completely captured those workers at site as the customer base yet, which has large room for development, unlike office workers who already are very competitive to obtain. Therefore, each business chat tool provider addresses to make the tools beneficial in work efficiency and in automating work processes through optimization of communications among entire company employees who are the target customers, including those workers at site.

Based on the background, the market can expect continuous growth, though the growth rate may not be high, like temporarily one during COVID-19 pandemic. The business chat tool market size is projected to attain 39,520 million yen for FY2024, 43,750 million yen by FY2026, and 45,450 million yen by FY2027.

Research Outline