Analysis of the Factors Contributing to Higher Performance in the Japanese Online Securities Industry: Research Based on a Statistical Analysis of Leading Companies

Abstract

Researches on online businesses have dramatically increased, as this line of business has expanded rapidly. However, there are few studies that analyze the success factors of specific industries or specific businesses quantitatively. Therefore, this analysis focuses on the stock trading industry which largely shifted from a "brick-and-mortar" market to an online market earlier than many other rapidly growing online businesses. The present study quantitatively investigates the factors that affect the performance of companies in this industry. The results are that (1) a first-mover advantage does exist, and (2) since the core customers are limited, performance is not improved only by increasing the number of accounts (i.e,, there are “diseconomies of scale.”)