Most major Japanese corporations maintain both a .co.jp and a .com domain. toyota.co.jp and toyota.com, sony.co.jp and sony.com, honda.co.jp and honda.com — this “duet” is not coincidental but a strategic choice to secure domestic trust and international reach simultaneously.

The .co.jp serves as a corporate trust credential within Japan. The one-domain-per-organization rule guarantees scarcity, establishing an implicit assurance: possessing a .co.jp means the entity is a legally registered corporation in Japan. In B2B transactions and recruitment, the presence of a .co.jp signals corporate legitimacy. Meanwhile, .com functions as the gateway to international markets. Ajinomoto has made ajinomoto.com its primary presence as global operations deepened. Rakuten governs overseas business through rakuten.com. Companies whose primary battlefield remains domestic — freee, SmartHR, Cybozu — continue to maintain .co.jp as their front door.

What proves intriguing is the shifting preferences of the startup generation. Mercari chose mercari.com; ZOZO opted for zozo.jp — a trend toward shorter domains rather than attribute-type .co.jp. While .jp lacks the institutional weight of .co.jp, it functions as an intermediate choice: retaining a “made in Japan” signal while achieving global conciseness.

Domain strategy is a mirror reflecting corporate self-perception. For domestic B2B, the trust of .co.jp is indispensable. For global ambitions, investment in .com is rational. And maintaining both — the duet — can be understood as a uniquely Japanese corporate adaptation strategy: inhabiting two ecosystems, domestic and international, simultaneously.