世論 What Japan Thinks

The granddaddy of Japanese SNS, mixi, seems to be losing ground in the mobile phone world, faced by the challenge from casual game-centric SNSs, according to the results of this survey from Point On Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into mobile Social Networking Services (SNS).

Demographics

On the 9th of December 2009 800 mobile phone user completed a private mobile phone-based survey. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

The two challengers to mixi are currently involved in a battle over an incredibly tedious-looking fishing game that GREE make the centre-piece of many of the television spots, as can be seen below:

Research results

Of the sample, 388 people, or 48.5%, used mobile SNS.

Q1: Which mobile SNS do you currently use? (Sample size=388, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
mixi mobile	273	70.4%
Mobage Town	196	50.5%
GREE Mobile	193	49.7%
NEO	29	7.5%
Puchi-gei	29	7.5%
ixen	25	6.4%
Any	6	1.5%
Other	54	13.9%

Since the same survey was conducted six months ago, the biggest winner has been GREE, adding seven percentage points to its market share.

Q2: Which mobile SNS do you use the most? (Sample size=388)

	Votes	Percentage
mixi mobile	203	52.3%
Mobage Town	87	22.4%
GREE Mobile	70	18.0%
ixen	4	1.0%
NEO	2	0.5%
Puchi-gei	2	0.5%
Any	0	0.0%
Other	20	5.2%

Q3: Compared to previously, how has your frequency of use of mobile SNS changed? (Sample size=388)

Increased considerably	25.0%
Increased	19.1%
Not really changed	34.8%
Decreased	34.8%
Decreased considerably	8.8%