QR Code is pervasively used in Japan. It is regarded as the "Mobile barcode" because of the wide use in mobile application. It is also associated with traceability because of various use cases.

QR Codes are widely used in Japan and throughout Asia. It was invented in 1994 by Denso (now Denso Wave), one of Toyota Motor Corporation's group companies. It was approved as an ISO international standard symbol (ISO/IEC 18004) in June 2000. This two-dimensional symbol was initially created for improving production control procedure of automotive parts. After the specification was made publicly available, QR Code became very well-known and widely used. In fact, it is considered to be "the 2D Symbol" in Japan.
Today's widespread use of QR Codes is due to the incorporation of a decoder for QR Codes in mobile phones with cameras in the early days of mobile communication. The most popular use of QR Code in Japan is to encode URL of a mobile website. More than 90% mobile phones in Japan feature a camera with software that can read and decode information contained in a QR Code, which has literally made the symbol ubiquitous in Japanese daily life. Now it is almost the norm for mobile phones to also have software that generates QR Codes for any given data. QR Codes are not only visible everywhere and every day in Japan, but they are also scanned (and sometimes generated) by consumers. (see 4.3 for Mobile Solutions).
The use of QR Codes in the mobile industry is not limited to carrying mobile URLs. QR Codes also carry a variety of data including information on tickets, payments, and coupons. Such uses are rapidly increasing. Japan's major airline carriers are using QR Codes for encoding boarding ticket information. Some railway companies and many on-line ticket service providers are using QR Codes for tickets and admission tokens. There are retailers and food service companies who encode mobile coupon data in QR Codes. In such cases the QR Codes are either printed on paper or displayed on a customer's mobile phone screen are read with image readers. The use of QR Codes will only increase in the future steadily, if not phenomenally.
Another important use of QR Codes is for traceability in food and other product supply chains. An increasing number of upstream suppliers of processed food use QR Codes by encoding GS1 Data defined by Application Identifier standards (see 1.5.2 and 4.2).
Government organizations recommending traceability acknowledge the QR Code as an optional data carrier for implementing a traceability system. QR Codes are typically used in labels too small to carry GS1-128. The industry guideline for surgical steel instruments allows QR Code as a standard symbol together with GS1 DataMatrix to carry GTIN and serial number. The GS1 General Assembly in May 2010 stated that QR Code will be considered as an equal choice for 2D symbols in B2C transactions or any new applications using 2D.

The QR Code presently finds a wide range of applications in various industries.

A new service has started in which prescription data is encoded into QR Codes and printed on prescriptions. The specifications for recording the data are standardized by the Japanese Association of Healthcare Information System Industry (JAHIS). In this service, users read prescription data with a scanner, which enters patient and prescription data quickly and accurately into the computer, preventing input errors and alterations of prescriptions. Because the service reduces time required for data input, waiting time becomes shorter for patients while pharmacists can spend longer time giving instructions on dosage and administration. Data to be encoded include information on the medical institution, diagnosis and treatment department, physician's name, patient's name, health insurance information, and drug information. Coded information complies with the data exchange standard of HL7 with which GS1 concludes a Memorandum of Understanding for collaboration.

GTIN and serial numbers are coded into QR Code and directly marked on steel surgical instruments.
(For more details, see 4.1.2.3)

Medical laboratories analyze and test medical specimens such as blood as commissioned by medical institutions. These specimens must be accurately managed and identified individually because a great number of specimens are handled every day for individual hospitals, test types, and test times. At some laboratories QR code labels are automatically printed marked and attached by labeling equipment. Data include acceptance date, medical institution name (in Chinese characters), analysis/test item code, test site code, and identification number.

QR Codes are used for the sales management of contact lenses and glasses. For a contact lens, the product code, product name, degree of correction, base curve, and other information are encoded into a QR Code of about 8 square mm size. The code is printed on the lens container, and the information is used for pointof- sales or inventory management.

At various exhibitions, seminars, and receptions QR codes on the ID badges of visitors and/or event staff are scanned when they enter and exit the venue, and used for various purposes such as on-site security management, marketing management, and customer management. For example, QR code was used in the Expo 2005 Aichi Japan for the staff/vehicle entry control.