Freee is crowned the king of cloud accounting in Japan. And it’s not even close

Skirmishes are breaking out in certain industries for Japanese startups. Everyone wants to be number one but getting the top spot is easier said than done. Competition is fierce, like the see-saw between Gunosy and Smartnews for the nation’s news app supremacy. Over in the world of accounting software for businesses, a new study shows that Freee is the leader, and may not be letting go of that title anytime soon.

According to a report from Digital in Fact, 41 percent of the representative sample of businesspeople use Freee. MoneyForward is usually cited as Freee’s main rival but they lag far behind with 9.7 percent market share.

Despite the big gap, both companies – and new competitors – have plenty of room to grow. Cloud-based accounting only makes up five percent of the accounting services used by local companies. The rest use installed software.

The news, which is sure to empower Freee salespeople trying to hit their year-end targets, helps explain why investors decided to pour an additional US$6 million into the firm after giving it US$8 million just five months earlier.

It’s good to be on top but Freee’s competitors are not going anywhere. Aside from MoneyForward, Accounting SaaS just closed a US$6.6 million funding round.

See: This Japanese entrepreneur is freeing small businesses from their accounting nightmares