Summarized: Yahoo! JAPAN's Passkey Success Story

Summarized Version: Discover how Yahoo! JAPAN achieved an 11% passkey adoption rate and reduced SMS OTP costs in our condensed summary of their success story.

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Yahoo! JAPAN, a part of LY Corporation and a major player in the Japanese media landscape, serves over 55 million users monthly. To enhance account security, they embarked on a journey toward passwordless authentication in 2017. This article delves into their strategy and achievements.

Success with Passwordless Authentication:

• Moving to passwordless authentication reduced forgotten login ID or password inquiries by 25%.

• Unauthorized access rates dropped with the rise of passwordless accounts.

• Passkeys outperformed SMS authentication with a higher success rate and 2.6 times faster authentication time.

• Currently, 11% of logins and 18% of smartphone logins on Yahoo! JAPAN use passkeys, leading to significant SMS OTP cost reductions.

Approach to Passkey Registration:

• Yahoo! JAPAN offers two passkey registration methods: post-login prompts and passkey management settings.

• 97% of users create passkeys via login prompts (91% through login and 6% through sign-up), while 3% use the "Manage passkeys" screen.

• Timely passkey offers right after login or sign-up engage users effectively.

Testing Different Passkey Registration Prompts:

• A/B testing improved the click-through rate (CTR) of the registration button on passkey prompts.

• Changing prompt labels to match operating system features (e.g., Face ID, Windows Hello) significantly increased CTR.

• Device-specific function names are more motivating for users to set up passwordless authentication.

Transition from Device-Bound to Synced Passkeys:

• Device-bound passkeys had usability challenges when users switched devices.

• Yahoo! JAPAN introduced synced passkeys for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS in September 2022 and for Android devices in March 2023.

• Synced passkeys solve device-switching issues and offer a continuous authentication solution.

Conclusion:

• Yahoo! JAPAN continues to expand its passkey user base, aiming to provide both convenience and security.

• Passkeys promise an outstanding user experience and solid business results.

• Yahoo! JAPAN remains committed to passwordless authentication and plans to implement new features in pursuit of the ultimate authentication system.