PayPay Leader Interviews is a series of interviews with PayPay group top executives that show a glimpse into their personalities and perspectives. This time, we interviewed Hirofumi Fujii, who assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at PayPay in October 2024.
Hirofumi Fujii
Executive Officer CMO / Head of Marketing Strategy Department, Business Promotion Group
He joined Tokai Digital Phone in 1998, where he facilitated the integration of SMS and mobile internet in the development department. Following Vodafone’s acquisition, he transitioned to the corporate strategy division, where he was involved in formulating medium- to long-term plans and business strategies. After SoftBank’s acquisition in 2006, he returned to service and content development, spearheading new services’ planning and implementation. From May 2009, he served as the service management director and later oversaw subscription-based services and carrier billing. He took on the role of PayPay’s marketing head in August 2018 and became an executive officer in July 2023, officially taking on the CMO position in October 2024.
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Extensive Experience: How a Wealth of Failures Shaped My Career
Please tell us your journey leading up to joining PayPay
I’ve built a diverse career in tech, corporate strategy, and marketing.
When I first joined Tokai Digital Phone, I worked as an engineer. It was the dawn of the mobile phone industry and mobile internet. Being able to contribute to product development during a time when the company’s business was evolving dramatically each year was an invaluable experience.
After Vodafone’s acquisition, I joined the corporate strategy division and learned the ropes of management and much more. The insights I gained in management, marketing, and finance during that period were further honed in the field of service planning after SoftBank’s acquisition. Making business judgments as a service manager polished my business acumen, and I also gained experience rapidly executing the PDCA cycle. Though it was challenging back then, having many opportunities and experiencing numerous failures created a great period of growth.
Since joining PayPay, I’ve tackled many initiatives. Just like SoftBank, PayPay encourages a culture where challenges can be undertaken without fear of failure. In this environment, I feel I’ve accumulated the know-how to improve our success rate and, at times, developed the decisiveness to stop when necessary. Past experiences have greatly informed my approach to marketing at PayPay and my perspective on what’s crucial as a CMO.
Raising Customer and Corporate Value Across the Group
Can you tell us about your role and mission?
I believe the CMO’s role is to contribute to maximizing corporate value from an end-user perspective. Specifically, my mission is to maximize customer value (the total sum of LTV) while maintaining marketing efficiency.
With PayPay already boasting a substantial user base, some might sense a slowdown in growth. However, contrary to such beliefs, out of the 67 million users (as of December 2024), the monthly transacting users (MTU) number stands at 34.52 million (based on SoftBank’s Q2 FY2025 financial results), covering roughly a third of the estimated 100 million smartphone users. This indicates there is still room to expand our reach. Simultaneously, accumulating use cases for existing users and increasing the customer value per individual (LTV) is equally crucial. Persistently engaging with both of these facets will, I believe, sustain the enhancement of customer value.
Furthermore, PayPay acts as a linchpin of sorts within the group’s financial businesses, celebrated as affordable and convenient. To make full use of this linchpin, it’s vital that our financial services—encompassing banks, securities, and cards—offer PayPay users services and user experiences they find appealing. I aim to contribute to elevating these service levels and, on this foundation, construct a structure where marketing strategies funnel customers through PayPay effectively.
What are the Key Pillars of the PayPay Group’s Marketing Strategy?
Ensuring PayPay earns the position of “the special one” in the payments and finance realms and creating an environment for “sustainable growth” are paramount.
PayPay is now aiming to stand out as a comprehensive fintech enterprise within the Japanese market. We’ll intensify efforts so users see PayPay as indispensable across the entire financial spectrum. For instance, currently, asset management is still in its infancy in Japan. By leveraging the app’s touchpoints and abundant payment data, if we’re able to offer services like AI-driven concierge features that propose optimal asset portfolios to users, we can move closer to being the “special one” in their eyes. Proposing new values to users through marketing initiatives should support this effort.
As for sustainable growth, we’re aiming for reliable market trust, not fleeting profits, by ensuring the group’s collective growth. We plan to establish a structure that consistently boosts customer value to facilitate this.
Challenges and Areas for Further Strengthening
What insights do you have regarding the challenges and areas for strengthening?
In marketing, many activities are hard to visualize and quantify, and I approach these challenges with a management perspective.
Even when it comes to LTV, definitions vary significantly across companies. By refining the structure to understand how much LTV would increase by transitioning users from one segment to another, we could back-calculate costs and make investment decisions easier. I’m also focusing on setting unified standards within the group to create an environment where marketing measures can be actively undertaken.
Efficiently boosting LTV requires segmenting users and fostering them through individualized approaches. Introducing necessary marketing tools, creating segment-specific content, and utilizing AI are all part of the operational framework we seek to develop and roll out to each group company.
Your Thoughts on the PayPay Brand’s Positioning?
One of PayPay’s strengths lies in its agility to readily adjust business priorities in response to changes in the business environment. Thus, we’ve deliberately refrained from defining PayPay’s brand identity. However, as a result, users currently perceive us as having the brand value of a convenient and cost-effective mobile payment service.
From here on, as a comprehensive fintech company, I believe we need to proactively engage in rebranding so that users perceive us as a partner for money. The specific timing and methods for this are under consideration as we speak.
Marketing in an Environment Where Good Services Consistently Emerge
What do you value in your work?
As with previous interviews, I continue to focus on the PayPay 5 senses principle, specifically “SPEED is our bet on the market.” By earnestly engaging with both the market and our services, maintaining a sense of speed through test marketing and PDCA cycles, we increase the number of attempts we make—and heighten the possibility of reaching the best results in the shortest time. This remains a key mindset I wish to uphold.
What Makes Working in Marketing Enjoyable?
At PayPay, the app is updated weekly, with constant new service and feature launches and improvements. Marketing with a strong sense of pride in our products is immensely gratifying.
Marketing is all about changing inclinations. While PayPay has grown to become a nationally recognized platform, we continue on this journey of evolution. Our role as marketers involves influencing the inclination of this growth. How acutely we can manage this trajectory will determine whether PayPay becomes the “special one” in payments and finance. I feel a strong responsibility as I dedicate myself to these efforts daily.
What Drives Your Work Motivation?
The realization that more people are using PayPay in their daily lives is my greatest source of motivation.
PayPay integrates the Net Promoter Score (NPS) as one of its indicators. About 40% of our active users are willing to recommend PayPay to others, translating to over ten million users, and the number is on the rise. Encounters with people who express recommendations enhance my sense of job satisfaction, providing a powerful validation. The dynamic scope of this experience is unique to PayPay, and witnessing the company’s emerging societal influence fills me with pride as I take part in my work.
Enhancing Marketer Value in a Dynamic Environment like PayPay
What objectives do you aim to achieve moving forward?
I want to engage the market from various angles with a focus on the end user’s perspective. We strive for PayPay to become a perpetually valuable service by achieving profitability and sustainable growth. To pursue this, I intend to establish a marketing organization that consistently augments customer value, anchoring this culture across the group.
Lastly, a message for our readers please!
Strong, proud products and services lay the foundation for powerful marketing. Conducting marketing activities in such an environment directly correlates with a marketer’s growth and fulfillment, and I can confidently state that PayPay offers this.
Here, there’s a culture that encourages new challenges, often aided by favorable winds such as environmental changes and regulatory relaxations. For those wanting to elevate their marketer value by engaging in dynamic marketing, this is an ideal setting. I hope to collaborate with motivated individuals eager to stand up to numerous at-bats without fearing failure and drive business growth together. Let’s make this journey together!
Current job openings
Business level Japanese is required for all the following positions below.
*Job openings and employee affiliations are current as of the time of the interview.