Comparison: Newspapers and news apps
Good old newspaper
In Japan, the newspaper is a big deal. A lot of people read their newspaper in the morning before they leave the house. There are several major newspapers in Japan and the following ones are the most popular ones.
・Asahi Shimbun （朝日新聞）
・The Yomiuri Shimbun （読売新聞）
・Mainichi Shimbun （毎日新聞）
・Sankei Shimbun （産經新聞）
・Nihon Keizai Shimbun （日本経済新聞）
These 5 are the major newspapers in Japan that distribute to a wide range of people all over Japan. However, the most popular newspaper among Japanese businesspeople may be the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. This is because as the name suggests, it mainly focuses on economic-related news.
Revenue of each newspaper company in Japan
If you look at the sales of each newspaper company, you can also see which newspaper is the most popular amongst Japanese people. (However, we must consider that they have slightly different business models, so it is hard to determine just by revenue if they actually publish the most popular newspaper or not.)
・Nihon Keizai Shimbun 330.8 billion yen
・The Yomiuri Shimbun 306.7 billion yen
・The Asahi Shimbun Co.
・Mainichi Shimbun Group HD 153.7 billion yen
・Industrial economic newspaper 87.8 billion yen
However, their sales are declining year by year, and one of the reasons for this is told that the consumers are gradually starting to shift to digital media for their news source. In the next part of this article, let’s have a look at what kind of news app Japanese people use these days.
If you are interested in looking deeper into individual newspapers, they have an English version website, which you can access easily from the link below.
・Asahi Shimbun （朝日新聞）https://www.asahi.com/ajw/
・The Yomiuri Shimbun （読売新聞）https://the-japan-news.com/
・Mainichi Shimbun （毎日新聞）https://mainichi.jp/english/
・Sankei Shimbun （産經新聞）https://japan-forward.com/
・Nihon Keizai Shimbun （日本経済新聞）https://asia.nikkei.com/
5 popular news apps in Japan
List of the major news apps in Japan
Here are some of the popular online news media (app) you might want to use if you are going to live in Japan. (or obtain information about Japan)
・NHK NEWS & Disaster Info（NHK ニュース・防災）
These are all news apps that are used heavily by the Japanese, but each of these has its own unique points. Let’s see how these apps differ from each other.
News app in Japan explained
For example, SmartNews is a major news curation app that is also quite popular in the United States as well (over 50 million downloads in the United States.) The user can easily switch the neutrality of the news from right to left. By switching the neutrality of the news, you will be able to compare different opinions from different sides which is especially useful when trying to obtain information relating to politics.
Gunosy is also a curation app and news and information from 12 different genres will be displayed in separate tabs. Users can read the news and information they want at any time from these tabs.
NewsPicks is interesting in that they have a lot of “PROs” who are specialists in their respective fields commenting with in-depth analysis. It is useful when you want to hear the voice of an expert on any news.
Yahoo! News is also a curation app but it is famous for its comment section. The app allows users to comment anonymously, and this is the place where most people imagine when they hear of a comment section of a news app.
NHK NEWS & Disaster Info is run by NHK, which is the national broadcasting news outlet. It is unique in that it allows you to skim through weather and disaster information seamlessly from the news section.
Get your news efficiently in Japan
The best app and newspaper for you in Japan
If you are just beginning your life in Japan, there are so many ways for you to obtain news from. For example, TV is one option and some people get their daily dose of news from the displays inside the trains. Here we introduced 5 different newspapers and news app in Japan, so you should definitely check these out as well. If you don’t know Japanese, reading the news is a great way to start learning the language. We hope that you can gather news efficiently and have the best life in Japan personally and professionally.
