Why Japan's Telecom Giants Are Turning to Fandom: Loyalty Points Meet Oshi-Katsu

Japan’s telecom carriers now offer fans digital cards of favorite players and apps dressed in beloved characters. Read together, these perks are a way to turn a phone contract into regular use of the carrier’s points and payment services.

Behind the perks is a structural shift. Growth in communications revenue has plateaued, and competition has moved to “economic zones” (keizaiken), ecosystems that bundle payments, finance, shopping and entertainment. Membership bases are already huge, with little room to grow. What each company is hunting for is a reason to get the members it already has to move every day, and oshi-katsu, the Japanese practice of actively supporting your favorite (your oshi), has become that reason.

Background: The Economic Zone Is Now About Getting People to Open It

According to an analysis of loyalty-point economic zones (in Japanese) in the InfoCom newsletter (survey as of October 2025), just under 40% of users treat the Rakuten zone as their main one, and over 60% do when secondary use is counted. Most people already belong to some economic zone.

Younger people are becoming more conscious of point-collecting (poi-katsu) too. In a 2025 survey (in Japanese) conducted by Skyfall with 1,809 people aged 15–69 nationwide, among those who had done poi-katsu within the past month, 65.3% of people in their teens and twenties said rising prices had made them more conscious of it—the highest share of any age group.

The market itself has grown large. Oshi-katsu Research Institute estimates the oshi-katsu population at about 13.84 million in January 2025 and 19.4 million in January 2026, and the market at about ¥3.5 trillion to ¥4.1 trillion (see the 3rd Oshi-katsu Survey). The Ministry of Finance column, “Economic Trends 137: Oshi-Katsu” (in Japanese; 2025) also says that one in three people aged 15–79 is said to have an oshi.

So members are already won and the points habit is already set. What remains is how often people open the app, and a reason to route payments to your own company. Oshi-katsu programs go straight at both.

Approach 1: Put Your Oshi in the App People Open Every Day

NTT Docomo x the Love Live! Series

• Aim: Use a franchise to give people a reason to open a points and payment app every day, and so increase everyday contact with the economic zone
• Program: From July 22, 2026 to July 21, 2027, Docomo is offering 20 collaboration designs from six titles in the Love Live! series for the “skin design feature” of the d POINT Club app and the d payment app. It also set up a goal: when the “d POINTs collected together” reach 10 million, Docomo will send a flower stand to the venue. The feature had grown to more than 120 franchises and more than 400 designs by the end of June 2026 (PR TIMES, in Japanese)
• The Lab’s view: The key to this program is that it needs almost no extra investment in network infrastructure. It takes license fees and an operating setup, and that low bar is why it could grow to 120 franchises. Even if the sales effect of each franchise is hard to measure, a catalog of 400 designs is inventory that other companies can’t copy in a short time. Tying the goal to the flower stand, a bouquet-style gift fans send to a venue, also helps. It turns earning points from a personal gain into shared support

Approach 2: Add “Pick Your Oshi” to the Contract Process

Rakuten Mobile x Rakuten Eagles / Vissel Kobe

• Aim: Use the sports assets inside the group as a direct reason to sign a phone contract
• Program: From May 15 to November 4, 2025, new Rakuten Mobile customers and number-switchers who chose a “favorite player” earned up to 14,000 points for a number switch or up to 11,000 points for a new contract, plus a digital card of the chosen player. In August 2026 a Vissel Kobe version was refreshed, offering points at the same level and a digital card called “Vicolle” (Vissel Kobe official, in Japanese)
• The Lab’s view: On points alone, it is not much different from other companies’ switching campaigns. The difference is that one screen asking “who do you support?” sits inside the application form. A routine bit of paperwork becomes a declaration of your oshi. That the same approach was rolled out across both baseball and soccer suggests Rakuten judged that this one screen works. Linking the culture of team-as-oshi (kyudan-oshi) to the contract flow is a weapon only companies with teams inside the group have

Approach 3: Put Payment Infrastructure in the Context of Support

NTT Docomo x the J.League “Oshi-J”

• Aim: Tie the d payment method to the emotional context of supporting clubs and their regions
• Program: From February 6 to June 30, 2026, Docomo gave 1,000 points to each of 10,000 people drawn by lottery from those who paid ¥500 or more with d payment on the J.League’s official ticket site. It also gave 5,000 points to each of 100 people drawn every month (500 in total) from those who paid ¥500 or more at their home stadium or at “d payment x club-support shops” (PR TIMES / NTT Docomo, in Japanese)
• Results: As of January 31, 2026, total support money was announced to have passed ¥35 million (roughly $233,000), with 46 participating clubs (out of all 60 J.League clubs) and about 270,000 supporters taking part in total (cumulative figures for the program as a whole)
• The Lab’s view: For a club’s finances, ¥35 million is not large. What is working is not the amount but the experience of everyday payments being counted toward support. Drawing in restaurants outside the stadium as “support shops” matters too. It swaps the reason to use d payment from reward rate to contributing to the club and the region. Docomo has sponsored the J.League since 2017 and is now in its tenth year. Only that long a relationship lets payment and support be talked about in the same breath

Approach 4: Make the Technology Itself the Value

JAL x KDDI “Digital x Oshi-Katsu” Trip XR

In 2024, JAL and KDDI announced “Trip XR,” working with KDDI’s “STYLY Spatial Computing Lab” and XREAL Japan to explore how smart glasses could support oshi-katsu experiences such as anime pilgrimages and puzzle-solving on trips (KDDI, in Japanese). Separately, JAL sold a Love Live! touring campaign with Bandai Namco Filmworks and others from October 6, 2025 to May 31, 2026, at ¥3,300 per course and ¥8,800 for the three-city full-experience pack (JAL press release, in Japanese).

NTT x IOWN x VTuber “A VR Fan Meeting Where You Can High-Five Your Oshi”

• Aim: Prove the value of IOWN, NTT’s next-generation communications platform, not through price or speed but through “physical closeness to your oshi”
• Program: On March 15, 2026, Docomo’s XR studio (Minato, Tokyo) and an experiment site (Musashino) were connected over the IOWN APN. NTT combined its VR haptic communication technology “Self-Haptics” with commercially available VR goggles to reproduce the feel of a high-five with a VTuber from a remote location (NTT news release, in Japanese)
• Results: In a survey of 39 participants, items such as “the sensation of the high-five” and “a sense of oneness with the virtual character” were rated highly. All respondents answered “somewhat satisfied” or better and said they would take part again (MoguLive, in Japanese)
• The Lab’s view: Thirty-nine people is a small sample, not a number to talk up. Still, what deserves attention is that the carriers chose oshi-katsu as the proving ground for their technology. Differences in line speed can no longer be felt. But “the feel of shaking hands with a corporate VTuber reaches you” is a difference anyone can understand. Docomo has been on this path since its 2018 5G x 8K VR live-streaming trial, and the IOWN project extends it

Comparing the Four Approaches

The top two reuse existing assets and the bottom two are new investments. The first pair is realistic for most companies, but the second pair is where differentiation really bites.

Patterns That Work and Patterns to Watch

The second-to-last row is where things most often go wrong. Point-economy programs are generally time-limited and conditional, so complaints from people who missed the deadline and couldn’t take part are built in. Existing users’ backlash over changes to reward rates has also recurred across the industry. How you present the conditions shapes your reputation later more than the size of the perk does.

For Corporate Planners: Six Steps to Move a Membership Base With Oshi-Katsu

1. Start by taking inventory of existing flows: Before building a new app, go through the screens people open every day and find where a franchise could sit
2. Don’t narrow it to one franchise: Docomo’s 120 franchises and 400 designs show that only when the numbers are there does the feeling of “my oshi is here” exist
3. Add the small step of choosing: A screen where people pick their own favorite player or club turns paperwork into a statement of support
4. Consider ways to bring in local member shops: Designing support shops takes coordination with local governments and shopping associations, which makes them assets other companies can’t easily imitate
5. Start technology trials small, and set the evaluation criteria first: Even with 39 people, if the questions are settled, the results can inform a decision on commercialization
6. Put deadlines and conditions on the first page: The more time-limited the program, the more the deadline announcement shapes satisfaction

On rights clearance, note that the counterparties differ: franchise collaborations go through the production committee, an individual player’s likeness through the team or club, and VTubers through the operating company (or the individual, for independents). As a rough guide to preparation time, sports tie-ins take several months in step with the season calendar, franchise rollouts in an app several months to half a year, and technology trials a year or more.

Notes From The Oshi Lab: Support Is One of the Few Differentiators a Carrier Can Sell

A carrier’s product comes down, in the end, to a comparison table: monthly fee, data allowance, reward rate. All of it can be lined up in numbers, and the winner is clear at a glance. That is why each company built an economic zone and raised the cost of switching. Oshi-katsu programs look like an extension of that, but their nature is a little different.

App skins, favorite players and support money are all designs that leave subscribers with the feeling that “I chose this myself.” Merely receiving points is passive, but once you choose whom to support, that choice becomes your own decision. People find it hard to walk away from what they chose themselves. We think Docomo’s ten years of sponsoring the J.League, and its reading of d payment purchases as support money, is a way of spending time to build up this effect over the long term.

At the same time, we shouldn’t forget that the IOWN high-five trial ended at 39 people. Attempts to close the distance to your oshi with technology are still standing at the entrance to commercialization. What the Lab will watch over the next year is how many people that touch reaches. Can carriers move from using oshi-katsu as a draw for their economic zones to selling experiences that only communications technology can create? The company that clears that bar can step outside the comparison table.

Related articles: What is oshi-katsu marketing? / The J.League and oshi-katsu / What is fan marketing? / The size of the oshi-katsu market (2026 edition)