2015 All-Japan Research Team: Internet, No. 3: Yosuke Tomimatsu

Yosuke Tomimatsu

Bank of America Merrill Lynch

First-place appearances: 0

Total appearances: 1

Team debut: 2015

A runner-up the past two years in Software/Entertainment, Bank of America Merrill Lynch’sYosuke Tomimatsuearns the No. 3 spot on this lineup. (The Internet sector makes it return to the All-Japan Research Team survey this year after having been removed in 2003.) The 43-year-old analyst holds a bachelor of law degree from Keio University. He joined BofA Merrill in 2010 from Nomura, where he reported on the same space. Currently, Tomimatsu covers nine names, down one from a year ago, and “his relationships and accessibility to top managements are great,” one admirer declares. For his part, the researcher believes that the strength of an Internet company can be gauged by its relative success in deploying native applications to attract users and thereby slow or end its dependency on such search engines as Google — and typically lower marketing costs in the process. “We are also seeing a trend toward increased frequency of use as well as longer usage duration for popular apps, [which] should allow for more advertising and fee revenue per user,” Tomimatsu says. Given its dominant market standing, Tokyo-based online shopping services provider Rakuten is poised to reap the rewards of these changes. “We see continued appreciation for Rakuten given its advanced position in the financing business,” says Tomimatsu. Another likely beneficiary is Tokyo’s Yahoo Japan Corp., a diversified information portal that he contends “has potential, following its start-up of a credit card business.”