Line Pop Hits 10 Million Downloads in Just 12 Days

TECH IN ASIA, Dec 3, 2012 at 16:20 PM

A little while back we told you about some new games launched by NHN Japan on its now famous and wildly popular chat app platform Line. Among those games was Line Pop, a puzzle game which quickly racked up more than three million downloads in its first 24 hours. And now today, the company is announcing that in just 12 days the game has already reached 10 million downloads worldwide.

This success appears to be widely driven by popularity in the Asia region, as the iOS version has hit number one overall in the free app rankings for Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia, and on Google Playit’s tops in Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand. NHN Japan’s other new games are also doing well in terms of downloads and sales, say the company.

Line’s chat application looks to be a pretty amazing distribution channel for NHN Japan’s repertoire of games and applications. Its first game to be unleashed on its ‘Line Platform’ was Birzzle, which reached 10 million downloads in 97 days. Similarly, Line Camera was also cross promoted to Line chat app users earlier this year and managed to reach 10 million users in just 117 days.

But 10 million downloads in 12 days for Line Pop tops those feats, and marks a big accomplishment for NHN Japan in the mobile games department. In fact, looking at the free app rankings on Google Play for Japan, we can see that the company is dominating, occupying six of the top 10 positions. [h/t VS Media]

EVOLUTION OF A RUSSIAN CONSUMER:  HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CONFERENCE “AEGIS MEDIA AUTUMN SESSIONS 2012” HELD BY AEGIS MEDIA RUSSIA ON THE 24^TH OF OCTOBER 2012

Source: Aegis Media Russia

·         The conference consisted of 2 parts: the first was about the latest trends of the Russian advertising market and the second was about the successful Russian brands.

·         One of the most interesting presentations was made by Simeon Marinov, Integrated Communications Director Aegis Media Russia. It was about the myths about Russian consumers.

Myth 1: Russian consumers prefer luxurious brands because they want to show off. In fact, since 2007 the share of Russian consumers, who would buy whatever goods in order to look more respectable, decreased from 61% to 55%. The share of those, who prefer the latest fashion goods also decreased: from 47% in 2007 to 42% in 2012. At the same time, there is at least one category, where Russian consumers are willing to overpay for prestige: Automobiles. 42% of consumers choose the brand first when it comes to a new car purchase (a 2% increase vs. 40% in 2010). More than 2/3 of consumers want their car to stand out – the same % as in 2010.

Myth 2: Internet absorbed TV. Internet penetration has reached 90% among the young audience (12-30) in Russia (vs 39% in 2007) while TV viewing has changed insignificantly during the same period: from 96% in 2007 down to 89% in 2012. Mobile internet penetration is not a threat for TV as well: only 8% of the adult population in Russia use smartphones for internet surfing and only 2% use tablets, which is much lower than in US and many European countries. However it may change soon – the biggest cellular companies in Russia invest a lot in order to make mobile internet faster.

Myth 3: Ecommerce has a great potential in Russia. There are some barriers. For example most of the Russian consumers prefer cash: although they have debit or credit cards, they use them mostly for withdrawing money from ATM. Most of the e-shops receive cash when the goods are delivered to their consumers. A very small % of goods is prepaid by credit cards online and then delivered to the consumers in Russia. At the same time the % of Russian consumers, who buys goods online, increases constantly. Postal services are not good as well – another barrier for such giants like Amazon and eBay.

Myth 4. There are more people in Russia, who are ready to donate, than 2-3 years before. There were very good examples of people getting together to fight with forest fires in 2010. 74% of the Russian consumers claim that they would prefer to buy goods produced by the companies, which donate for charity – vs. 68% in 2010. At the same time, only 6% are ready to transfer some money if they receive a personal call for help, even if it is motivated. More than 2/3^rd of the Russian consumers are confident that they will be cheated if they donate some money

Future of Nokia hangs on Windows Phone 8 rollout

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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gives his presentation at the launch of Microsoft Windows 8, in New York, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012. Windows 8 is the most dramatic overhaul of the personal computer market's dominant operating system in 17 years. (AP/Richard Drew)

For Nokia, it comes down to this: Is Microsoft's new phone software going to get it back in the smartphone race, or is it going to be too late?

After being the top seller of cellphones in the world for 14 years, Nokia failed to meet the challenge when Apple in 2007 introduced the dazzling iPhone that caught the imagination of design-conscious customers and rattled mobile markets.

The Finnish company hit a downward spiral that has led to shrinking sales and market share, plant closures, thousands of layoffs and downgrades by credit agencies to junk status.

On Friday, research firm IDC said that in the July-to-September period, Nokia slid for the first time off the list of the top five smartphone makers in the world. It's still the second-largest maker of phones overall, but sales of non-smartphones are shrinking across the industry, and there's little profit there.

The ailing company's CEO, Stephen Elop, sees Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 software as a chance to reverse that trend, describing it as a catalyst for the new models.

On Monday, Microsoft Corp. is hosting a big launch event for the software at an arena in San Francisco. The first phones from Nokia, Samsung and HTC are expected to hit store shelves next month.

The launch of Windows Phone 8 follows on the heels of Windows 8 for PCs and tablets, which Microsoft released Friday. That operating system has borrowed its look from Windows Phone, meaning Microsoft now has a unified look across PCs and phones — at least if people take to Windows 8. The company has also made it easy for developers to create software that runs on both platforms with minor modifications.

Analysts are calling this a make-or-break moment for Nokia.

"Nokia is placing a huge bet on Microsoft and if the gamble doesn't pay off, the losses can be high," said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics, near London. "It's putting all its eggs in one basket and that's quite a high-risk strategy."

In February last year, Nokia announced it was teaming up with Microsoft to replace its old Symbian and next-generation MeeGo software platforms with Windows. This move was made in the hope that it would rejuvenate the company and claw back lost ground.

Eight months later, they produced the first Nokia Windows Phone. Consumers didn't warm to it, and it soon became clear that these phones, based on Windows Phone 7, were going to become obsolete. They can't be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Lumia sales slumped to 2.9 million units in the third quarter after reaching 4 million in the previous three months.

"Retailers withdrew marketing and promotion because no one wants to sell customers a device that ages in a few months," says Michael Schroeder, analyst at FIM Bank Ltd. in Helsinki.

"Had there been a seamless transfer to Windows 8 from the old (Lumia) devices, sales figures would have been much higher last quarter."

Mawston gives Nokia until April to prove it's still in the race.

"If Nokia does not have more than 5 percent of the global smartphone market by the end of the first quarter 2013, alarm bells will be ringing," Mawston said.

Analysts estimate Nokia's current global smartphone market share to be some 4 percent — down from 14 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, uncertainty clouds its new venture with Microsoft.

"We're a bit in the dark here," Schroeder said. "Right now we can't really say anything about Nokia's future. Everything depends on how the new devices are received in the market."

Nokia says its Lumia 920 and 820 phones are just the beginning of a new range of Windows Phone 8 devices, but early evaluations suggest they lack the "wow" effect necessary to make a dent in the smartphone market.

Also, Windows Phone 8 lags behind in the number of third-party applications available. There are some 100,000 available. Google's and Apple's stores have six or seven times as many.

"It's a perception thing really," Mawston of Strategy Analytics said. "Like in supermarket wars, if you have a store with lots of shelves with lots of apps, then consumers will choose you over a smaller store that has a smaller offering — even if you can't use all those apps."

Analysts expect 700 million smartphones to be sold worldwide this year. While network operators and retailers may welcome a third software system to challenge the dominance of Apple's iOS and Google's Android, it is the consumer who will ultimately decide Nokia's and Windows Phone 8's fate.

Beside the smartphone challenge, Nokia is feeling the pinch in the lower end with manufacturers in China and in Asia producing cut-rate non-smartphones — Nokia's former domain. Earlier this year, Samsung overtook it as the world's No. 1 mobile phone vendor, ending Nokia's reign that peaked in 2008 with a 40 percent market share.

"Dumb" phones continue to be the backbone of Nokia operations, including in India where it's a top seller. With strong and extensive distribution networks and a brand well-known in emerging markets, all might not be lost for the company that grew from making paper and rubber boots to being the biggest manufacturer of cellphones.

Mawston says that in theory, Nokia and Microsoft have a good chance of success as they offer an across-the-board system that stretches across home computers, mobiles, laptops, tablets as well as in the office, backed by Nokia's strong distribution and hardware and Microsoft's multi-platform software.

"If they can exploit that underlying market platform ... and tie it all together in a good hardware portfolio, then potentially Microsoft and Nokia could be a very, very strong partnership — a bit like bringing together Batman and Robin," Mawston said. "But, in practice, whether they can execute on that reality still is a great unknown and remains to be seen."

Matti Huuhtanen, Associated Press, Helsinki | Sci-Tech | Sun, October 28 2012, 9:03 PM

Smartphone Adoption to Reach 60 percent in South Korea

Smartphone Adoption to Reach 60 percent in South Korea
Based on article from TechinAsia August 2012.

LG Smartphones, Photo: Yonhap

Korean news agency Yonhap news is reporting that South Korea’s smart phone user base is about to surpass the 30 million mark. The report cites industry sources saying that the country’s local telecoms have reported a total of 29.97 million smartphone subscribers.

So far the market leader is SK Telecom (SEO:017670; NYSE:SKM) with 14.72 million users, followed by KT (NYSE:KT) and LG Uplus (KRX:032640) with 9.4 million and 5.78 million respectively. That’s pretty remarkable considering that the nation’s population just surpassed 50 million in June.

In terms of LTE adoption, SK Telecom recently passed 4 million subscribers, while KT and LG have about 1.4 and 3 million a piece.

For companies and startups looking at expanding your game or app to Asia, Korea is certainly a market to look at given its affinity for smartphones. When I spoke with Angry Birds’ maker Rovio a few days ago, they told me that their game has more total downloads in Korea than there are smartphone users in Japan.

Looking at the growth of mobile in the country as a whole (feature phones included) shows the total mobile subscriber base, as of 2011, to be about 52.5 million, with an astounding 108.5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants.