According to data released by Japan's Cabinet Office on Thursday; gross domestic product shrank by 0.4 percent year-on-year in the last three months of last year, following a revised 3.3 percent contraction in the previous quarter.
However, economists were expecting growth of 1.1 percent.
The data also confirmed that Japan's economy slipped to the world's fourth largest in dollar terms last year. Germany currently has the world's third largest economy.
