Japan Barber Market Analysis 2025 Edition

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1. Industry Snapshot

• The size of the barber market in the first half of 2024 is estimated to be approximately 276 billion yen (10.4% of the total hair and beauty market of 2.65 trillion yen).

• The number of facilities was 110,297 (-1.9% YoY) . This is a net decrease of 16,000 facilities over the past 10 years, and a contraction trend of -1.6% per year.

• 205,000 employed barbers, average age of owner is 66.8 years , 94.5% are privately owned

• The national average haircut price is 3,668 yen . It has only increased by +150 yen (+4.2%) between 2015 and 2023.

2. Market Branch

3. The nature of the supply-demand gap

1. Demographic Mismatch

   • The male population aged 0–39 will decrease by 31% from 1995 to 2025 (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications estimate). While the number of young customers is decreasing, barbers are aging. Result: The natural disappearance of old customers > the creation of new demand.

2. Price Stickiness

   • Real wages and utility costs have risen by around +15% over the past eight years, but the price increase has only increased by +4%. If they choose to raise prices, they will be unable to pass on the increase because their elderly regular customers will move to Quick Cut.

3. Productivity polarization

   • Each QB HOUSE store has an annual visit rate of approximately 29,000 people (1 haircut per 10 minutes), which is 8–10 times higher than a single store. Chains maximize operating rates through digital transformation and standardization, while traditional stores have low capital equipment ratios and IT adoption.

4 External trends and leverage points

5 Scenario analysis (2025–2030)

6 Bottlenecks

1. Lack of successors : As of 2023, 72% of business owners have no plans for a successor.

2. IT literacy gap : The aging of store owners is hindering the introduction of digital transformation.

3. Skills training costs : National qualifications and apprenticeship systems suppress the supply of skills, and wage levels are 2.69 million yen per year for those aged 30–34.

7. Strategic Options (Extreme Specifications)

• The only way to secure gross profit in a market where price increases are impossible is to expand the basket

  • Shaving → skin care, head spa → hair growth products, and post-cut merchandise sales will increase the unit price to 1.6 to 2.0 times the treatment price.

• “Whoever controls the booking platform controls the customer”

  • Customer LTV and repeat purchases are managed algorithmically through your own LINE mini app or external API integration.

• “Fill in blind spots with visiting barbers”

  • The vacant time between 13:00 and 16:00 on weekdays was used for at-home haircuts, increasing the operating rate from 60% to 85%. Customers were attracted in bulk through facility contracts within a 30-minute travel distance.

• "Use your qualifications as a weapon"

  • We designed a complex store with a double license that offers hair removal, eyebrow treatments, and cosmetics sales, and used the barriers to entry to our advantage.

• M&A packaging with exit in mind

  • Using 78% of the real estate ownership as collateral, the company prepared a PMI template and sold five stores in a bundle.

8 Conclusion

Although it is considered a shrinking industry, the structural factors are "aging management x rigid prices," and the demand itself is in an expansion phase, with men's beauty services at 49.7 billion yen (+14%) and home barber services growing by double digits .
Therefore, only businesses that simultaneously invest in "capital, digital, and integrated services" will be able to expand absolute amounts in a shrinking market . Conversely, more than 20% of independent stores that cannot do this will exit the market by 2030.

The barber business is a "necessity of life x cultural device x medical complement" and is not just a haircutting business.
Outside the shrinking old core, a growth frontier is already opening up.

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Representative Hiroshige Nakamura

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