Anytime you see ‘galapagos’ mentioned in any Japanese related tech article, know this: the writer is a lazy hack spicing up a crappy article with a sexy title. It’s no different than any American media hack putting ‘Trump says’ in a title because Trump coverage captures more eyeballs than anything else across the entire political spectrum.
So here we have a silly Nikkei piece about the “Transit IC Problem” aka the ongoing Suica card shortage, now at the one year mark as Suica and PASMO unregistered and registered plastic card sales were suspended on 2023-08-02 due to IC chip shortages. The article by Tokyo University professor Hideo Yamazaki makes the following claims:
- An American chip analyst source says that analog semiconductor production and inventory is stable at 17~34 week delivery (compared to 50 week delivery in Q1 2023) with falling prices.
- While there are plenty of FeliCa card manufacturers, there is only major manufacturer of FeliCa chips is in Taiwan (Nuvoton). The implication is that FeliCa is a niche, outdated “galapagos” product that nobody wants to manufacture.
- Poor inbound tourists are suffering because they can’t get Suica or PASMO cards.
Before we wade through the bullshit, let’s review some Suica / Transit IC ecosystem fundamentals:
Total Suica issue (10-2023) 100 million
Mobile Suica issue (06-2024) 28 million
Transit IC card monthly transaction volume (07-2024): over 300 million, the recently released Transit IC monthly transaction growth chart from JR East has interesting details.
The first big bump (2017~2018) is the impact of Apple Pay Suica, the drop-off is the impact of COVID killing off train transit just when Mobile PASMO/Apple Pay PASMO launched (2020), the recovery coincides with people riding trains again and the Mobile ICOCA/Apple Pay ICOCA launch (2023). Comparing the most recent 2 months indicates a sustained recovery. Key takeaway: mobile is a game changer for transit card systems that make the transition. Plastic transit card transaction growth is almost certainly, at best, static, all the transaction growth is on the mobile side.
The FeliCa chip situation and Suica card demand
If Nuvoton is the only FeliCa IC chip manufacturer, they are making the entire line of FeliCa IC chips. The main ones are: FeliCa SD (Transit IC cards, etc.), FeliCa SD2 (Suica 2 in 1 Region Affiliate Cards). Starting in 2021 with the launch of Suica 2 in 1 program there has been a steady expansion of Suica 2 in 1 launch regions: Tohoku, Akita, Yamagata, Gunma, Fukushima.
In addition to region affiliates coming on board, regular Suica service has expanded in JR East territory: Tohoku (Iwate, Aomori, Akita (2023), Yamagata (2024) and Nagano/Matsumoto (2025) and Suica remain on sale in new service regions.
At the same time there are significant Transit IC card service area expansions in the JR West ICOCA, JR Central TOICA and JR Kyushu SUGOCA regions. This means not only is there more chip demand than there was up until 2020, there are 2 different kinds of FeliCa chips competing for limited production resources. And let’s not forget those limited use group travel Suica Lite cards that started up in 2022.
However it’s important to remember a few essential points: 1) Transit IC cards have been around a long time, Suica since 2001, PASMO since 2007, with a huge user base, the people who need one already have one. 2) Mobile Suica has been around since 2006, Mobile PASMO since 2020, anybody with a Osaifu Keitai Android smartphone or iPhone can use them that way.
As everybody who needs a transit card in established areas already has one, the only people who need them then are the ones who lost a plastic card, children, and commuters starting a new job. Registered cards users can get a replacement at any station, commuter and child Suica / PASMO are widely available at stations. That leaves us with…
The Welcome Suica gang
And then there is the somewhat ridiculous inbound tourist situation. The curious Welcome Suica card that was originally produced for the ill-fated Tokyo Olympics, was repositioned as the default transit card for the hordes of tourists flooding Japan to take advantage of record low JPY exchange rates. Unfortunately, the cheap yen tourist rush coincided with the Suica / PASMO sales suspension.
Worse than that however is that western inbound tourists have a big problem: instead of searching for information or looking at the JR East English info site that lists current card availability, they post questions to social media sites like Reddit where anybody’s uncle can answer with crap like, ‘my dog trainer’s brother went to Japan 3 years ago and he couldn’t get a Suica in Okinawa.’ Poor inbound tourists my ass, spend a few minutes of precious eyeball time searching online and you’ll avoid the whole ‘no Suica’ drama.
Nevertheless, the situation for tourists coming in through Tokyo has quietly improved. As of today (2024-08-08) Welcome Suica are available at Narita and Hanada airports and regular unregistered Suica have been available for tourists at Tokyo area JR East Travel Service Centers since December 2023. Most tourists, western tourists that is, don’t know because they don’t bother researching anything…but the situation will soon get better for everybody because: Suica is going back on sale in fall 2024 which means you can get them at station vending machines again. Registered Suica only. Unregistered Suica will be limited to those pesky tourists lining up at JR East Travel Service Centers for the time being.
On the suffering inbound tourist front, more help is coming, for iPhone users that is, with the Welcome Suica Mobile iOS app in spring of 2025. Inbound Android users will remain stuck with getting plastic Suica because Google and Android manufacturers can’t get their global NFC act together. All in all it looks like the galapagos Transit IC 2025 problem isn’t going to be a problem. What else is new?
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