[Proprietary Survey] USD/JPY at 151: Exchange Rate Alone Drives 41.8% Increase in Cloud Costs (vs. 2020) — Domestic Market Grows by 46% in Two Years

LEI, inc. (Headquarters: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo), which launched the cloud cost reduction service "CloudCut" on May 27, 2026, conducted a proprietary survey on the cloud spending of Japanese companies.

The yen-denominated burden of dollar-based cloud invoices has reached a 41.8% increase compared to 2020 due to exchange rate factors alone. Added to this is the double-digit annual growth of the domestic cloud market and the expansion of generative AI-related workloads, which have substantially changed the spending structure of Japanese companies. This survey structurally organized the current situation by combining three public data sources with qualitative analysis of 11 keywords on X (formerly Twitter).

CloudCut is a cloud cost reduction service that cuts average operational costs for Amazon Web Services (AWS) by 20% without changing the existing configuration. Since implementation is completed with read-only permissions, there is no need to re-architect or replace instances, and there is no downtime. There are no initial implementation fees or minimum contract periods. Furthermore, as it supports payment in Japanese Yen and via invoice, it liberates companies from the exchange rate risk and overseas remittance fees associated with dollar-based credit card payments, simultaneously achieving monthly budget management and cash flow improvement.

■ Survey Results Summary

1. 41.8% "Expenditure Expansion in Yen Terms" Due to Exchange Rate Factors
The annual average USD/JPY rate rose from 106.77 yen in 2020 to 151.37 yen in 2024 (Source: Sekai Keizai no Netacho / IMF Statistics). Even with the same dollar-denominated cloud usage fees, the payment amount after yen conversion has increased by approximately 1.4 times over four years.
*AWS headquarters continues to implement dollar-denominated price reductions; this figure indicates the "increased burden felt by Japanese companies" solely due to exchange rate factors.

2. Domestic Cloud Market Sees Two Consecutive Years of Double-Digit Growth — Expansion of Approx. 350 Billion Yen in 2024 Alone
- Domestic IaaS/PaaS Market 2024: 2.28 Trillion Yen (+18.1% YoY) — Increase of approx. 350 billion yen from the previous year's actuals, with a 2028 forecast of 4.49 trillion yen (Source: Yano Research Institute)
- Total Public Cloud 2023: 3.1355 Trillion Yen (+25.8% YoY) (Source: IDC Japan / Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, 2024 Information and Communications White Paper)
- AWS Share in Japanese Market: Approx. 31% (Same source)
Both the number of utilizing companies and usage per company are increasing, with the market as a whole in a phase where the "absolute amount of cloud spending" is continuously accumulating.

3. Concerns on X Are Broad Regardless of Expenditure Scale — Organized into 4 Types
In this survey, X mentions were qualitatively categorized using 11 keywords such as "AWS expensive," "Cloud price hike," and "Server costs high."
- Type A: Individual/Small Business Layer — Voices feeling "unexpected" costs even with server fees of 10,000–20,000 yen per month
- Type B: Engineer Layer — Consideration of alternatives like local LLMs and self-hosted GPUs
- Type C: Mid-sized Enterprise Layer — Enthusiasm for VPS/cloud cost optimization webinars costing over 1 million yen per month
- Type D: Management Layer — Interest in overseas cloud cost reduction cases
It was confirmed that concerns regarding cloud costs are being continuously posted regardless of the scale of expenditure, from individual bloggers to the CFO layer of major companies.

■ Survey Background: 3 Factors Pushing Up Cloud Spending for Japanese Companies
Factor 1: Increased Yen-Denominated Burden for Dollar-Based Invoices due to Exchange Rates
Cloud usage fees are inherently designed in dollars. The annual average USD/JPY in 2024 was 151.37 yen, a 1.4 times burden when converted to yen compared to pre-COVID 2020 (106.77 yen). Exchange rate volatility simultaneously increases the uncertainty of budget management.
Factor 2: Expansion of Generative AI-Related Workloads
Since the advent of ChatGPT, the use of GPU, inference, large-scale data transfer, and vector DBs has increased, structurally pushing up cloud spending.
Factor 3: High Market-Wide Growth
The domestic IaaS/PaaS market grew by +18.1% YoY in 2024, and total public cloud grew by +25.8% in 2023, maintaining high double-digit annual growth.