I recently read a document out of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan that describes some of the government's ambitions and strategies surrounding 5G.  It was interesting to read a statement where, "it is important for Japan to become a cornerstone of the global open innovation ecosystem in the development and usage of Beyond 5G," with the goal of the strategy being to "strengthen Japan's international competitiveness in Beyond 5G (with the aims of a Beyond 5G infrastructure market share of 30%, including software, and to strengthen international competitiveness in terms of sectors for devices and Beyond 5G platform usage field)."  (p 3/10). 

The recent Hitachi acquisition of Mobile Logic for nearly $10 billion USD seems to be in alignment with this ambition but Japan seems to still be a long ways away from this 30% market share with 5G Infrastructure market expected to be worth north of $47 Billion by 2027, according to a recent Markets and Markets report.  The major players in this space include Huawei, China Mobile,  Ericsson, Samsung, Korea Telecom, SK Telecom, Nokia, ZTE, CISCO, AT&T, Juniper, T-Mobile, VMware, Verizon, HP, Alpha Networks, and possibly NEC among others.  Consequently, with all this global competition, the Japanese government's goals, which though admirable, also seem a bit unrealistic,  considering Japan's historically and currently rather insular, arguably closed mindset (though open on the surface). 

Thankfully, Japan, in particular the citizens of Japan, have a very positive and respectful image to the outside world, in general.  The government's ratings and their recent digital scorecard rankings, according to a McKinsey report, however, is cause for concern.  One of our goals, at Ezer, is to help help facilitate and foster Japan's global competitiveness, while also creating win-win scenarios for various stakeholders who are interested in the regional initiatives & agendas, from environmental and supply chain sustainability, the circular economy, continued adoption of SDGs, to fair trade practices,  ultimately contributing towards improved quality of life both regionally and globally.