Asia: A market to be embraced and not feared
Kyle Wiltshire, CEO at TESTA, says Asia presents tremendous opportunities but operators need to approach the region with caution and gain a deep understanding of markets before they make a move.
Japan’s booming market brings growth but fierce competition
Asia is a market that is often left out of the conversation, yet operators and suppliers often generate significant revenues from the region. The mostly unregulated nature of the market means operators need to take a considered approach to Asia and ensure any moves made align with the wider licence strategy and appetite for risk of the business.
But as with most regions across the globe, we are seeing markets throughout Asia embrace regulations which in turn is opening up more opportunities for operators to explore. This includes Japan, which has gotten quite large in recent years with no signs of the impressive growth recorded slowing down. It’s hard to know for sure, but most estimate that Japan is hitting at least $6bn in GGR right now. It’s a large market, but the competition is getting increasingly fierce, driven by white label providers pushing into the region.
This is not the only challenge that operators face–localisation in terms of payments, games and customer support are proving to be tough to get right. Japan also goes against the tide in terms of device preference–unlike the rest of Southeast Asia, it is developed with Apple commanding 60 percent of the smartphone market with desktop usage high. Generally speaking, Japanese people are pretty particular and are less willing to accept a product or experience that feels “global”–it’s the Japan way or the highway.
Understanding market realities before entry
It also presents some challenges – lower player values, slower devices and more archaic infrastructure – but it’s the fourth largest country in the world by population.
Micro bet sizes are the norm and can be tough for operators and suppliers–bets of 1,000 to 2,000 IDR are pretty common but that works out to be €0.05 to €0.10 per wager. This is why operators need to do their homework before entering any of these markets–or any new market, for that matter. This includes looking at the market leaders and those who they are hoping to win share against.
It’s important to gather this insight from people on the ground so that you have real-world feedback for how it looks from the player’s eyes.
In particular, look at things like:
- What payment options are available?
- What bonuses are being offered?
- How is the UX?
- What do the customer support functions look like?
I’d recommend mapping this out across three or more operators living in the market as this will provide valuable context and insight into what the expectations are.
This is one of the main reasons that operators come to TESTA – our crowd source platform allows us to collect a lot of information from the ground to help put things into context.
For example, an operator’s sign up to deposit process may take two and a half minutes, but how does that stack up against the competition? We help them determine where they sit in the market and where they need to catch up if they are behind.
Getting localisation and player experience right in Asian markets
It’s also important for operators to test the quality of the experience being offered to players. For me, the key area of focus here should be the betting products being offered–this is why players jump through so many hoops to create an account with the sportsbook or 바카라. They want to bet, spin and play. But simple things can really make or break delivering a quality experience in “distant” markets like Asia.
For example, the latency of a slot spin is going to be a lot lower on something served in Asia compared to Europe and that 100ms to 200ms compounds with each wager and spin. Ultimately, this affects turnover and GGR. The same applies to sports betting and having the right markets available and presented in a way the audience expects such as low latency for live bets. In short, benchmarking content against the competition is just as important as the sign-up flow, promotions, payments and so on.
In reality, localisation is super simple for a knowledgeable gambler that’s on the ground but entirely foreign for somebody at a cultural distance. For example, translation houses often do things too literally and miss key context about where the player is on the site and what the polite words would be.
A story I like to tell is about a client of ours who had the wrong character in Japanese for “Banker” in Baccarat. There was nothing technically wrong with the translation as it did indeed say “Banker”. The problem was a nuanced one–on a Japanese Baccarat table, “Banker” is spelled phonetically as “Banka” so using “Banker” literally would be seen as incorrect and untrustworthy. This may seem like a small error, but it’s a pretty big mistake considering Baccarat is the biggest table game in Asia. This is why having an “on the ground” presence is a must when launching into any new market, but especially jurisdictions in Asia where cultural differences can be significant.
Combining data, local insights and testing for market success in Asia
The key here is to get as much feedback, insights and data from the market as possible–this could mean using colleagues or flying people into the market to try things out. This does present some challenges but things like VPNs and VPS servers can get around issues such as IP detection, however they do add technical layers, so I’d suggest not using them for testing speed or performance metrics. It’s best practice to use a mix of technical tools and real people to establish a baseline of what the market leaders are doing and compare this to what you are doing so that you can close any gaps.
It’s important to remember that most betting experiences are similar, so getting the basics right–smooth UX, great games, solid markets and seamless payments–can really make a brand stand out. Asian iGaming markets are huge, but each country is different, so a considered approach is required.
At TESTA, we are here to support operators in their pre-market research and benchmarking, and to help them test the quality of the experience and the effectiveness of their localisation efforts for each market they target.
