Summary of Research Findings

As the structures of population and households are changing in the aging society, senior citizens have become more important as a group that actively consumes and purchases. How to attract elderly consumers who are considered as having enough money and time has become one of the keys for the future marketing activities.

By focusing on the markets that set their target audience to senior population, and to the companies trying to obtain demand by the elderly, this research has analyzed the market trends, covering various initiatives. This focus has not only included the conventional senior markets such as long-term care/rehabilitation or elderly care facilities, but also those categories such as leisure, sports, hobbies, and learning classes.
During past few years, various markets and enterprises have tackled to obtain senior demand, some of which have resulted in expanding the market, while some business forms and services have failed to do so and have already withdrawn from the market.    
Behavior restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic that occurred in 2020 have inflicted enormous damage to the senior-related markets, particularly tourism and entertainment.
Among the long-term care and rehab market, home-visit service, long-term care welfare goods, lending of welfare goods, and care robots have continued growing even amid the corona crisis, with health food/supplement, long-term care food/food for the elderly showing the similar market trends. Meanwhile, in the same long-term care and rehab market, commuting to and short-term admission to a long-term care facility are shrinking, along with trend of the hobbies/lessons/learning market. The sports market and the clothing/daily goods market are on the road to recovery, not yet reaching the full recovery, as they have failed to reach the pre-corona level.

Noteworthy Topics

Elderly Watch Service Highly Demanded, with IoT Enabling Various Services

Increased nuclear families and elderly households have brought about various services for the seniors. Among them, watch services have kept on growing as one of life support services geared to senior citizens and households. Such watch services have formed a market since around the year 2000, responding to the rising demand for safety confirmation of elderly people. At first, security companies have started providing the service that enables children's families to confirm the safety of their aged parent or parents living far away through home security system. Currently, some providers are developing additional services such as home-visit care or home delivery of meals, etc. to the monitoring service. Electric power houses and gas companies have also started developing watch services by utilizing their in-house infrastructure.
During the past several years, the services using telecommunication networks and IoT devices have increased, bringing about many manufacturers of lighting, TV sets, beds, and front doors to develop monitoring services through household appliances, furniture, housing materials that link to the lives of senior people, not to mention mobile phone companies and cable TV businesses.

While there also are monitoring-service dedicated businesses, the service contents are diversifying, as can see from increasing cases of alignment with the businesses providing long-term care services or elderly residences. Especially, those service providers that offer home-visit care services or home delivery of meals differentiate from others by directly meeting the elderly to confirm how they are at their visit.
As dementia wandering has become the social problem, some local communities are unitedly addressing the issue. Many municipalities provide watch services for senior citizens by using the resources and IoT devices by the private sector. The more aging advances, the more demand for monitoring services likely to increase.

Research Outline