ICT Research & Consulting has compiled a result from a survey on usage of social media (SNS) in Japan. According to the survey, the number of SNS users in Japan keeps increasing every year. In the end of 2013, it reached 54.87 million which accounted for 56.4% of the 97.36 million internet users in Japan, and it is expected to grow to be 60.23 million by the end of 2014. This growth is calculated to be an average of 0.45 million users each month. If it keeps spreading in a same rate, it will hit 68.70 million and will account for 66.5% of the entire internet users in Japan by the end of 2016.
The total number of SNS registry, including overlapped registration, is estimated to be 280 million. This means each SNS users are registered in about 5 SNSs. Most of the SNS users were in their 10’s and 20’s until now, however users in their 40’s and 50’s are increasing recently.
SNS services with the largest rate of utilization was LINE with 47.6%, then followed by Twitter with 41.9%, Facebook with 39.9%, mixi with 19.7%, Skype with 18.8% and Google+ with 16.1%. In the degree of satisfaction, LINE also topped other services with 73.1 points. Runner up was Skype with 70.4 points, followed by Twitter with 69.7 points, Google+ with 64.5 points and Facebook with 64.1 points. Finally, mixi was not highly evaluated in terms of satisfaction and gained only 58.3 points.
On the use of paid services such as phone/mail services and game applications, it became evident that the users spend more expense for game applications. Among the users registered in Supercell, providing game applications including a smash hit Clash of Clans, 42.8% use paid services. Also, over 30% of the users of other game application services, such as GungHo, GREE and Mobage, answered that they use paid services.
On the contrary, less than 10% of the registrants of phone/mail oriented services- Twitter, Skype, Facebook and mixi, use paid services. For Google+, LINE and Ameba, paid service users accounted for only 11 to 12% as well. However, paid service users for mixi is increasing this year as the registrants for a game application Monster Strike exceeded 11 million, and LINE is also rapidly gaining more paid service users for charged games including Disney Tsum Tsum. Attracting over 10 million free registrants for phone/mail services at first and then use paid game oriented applications for monetization has become the latest business model for SNS.
Through the survey, negative aspect of SNS had emerged as well. 31.4% received friend requests from strangers and felt uneasy, 29.2% regretted spending too much time for SNS, 23.6% felt stress from too many incoming from SNS and 10.1% received slanderous statements on SNS. Furthermore, 6.7% mentioned that their SNS account had been abused, suggesting possibility of becoming victim of fraud by SNS account being stolen or abused.
(Travel Voice Editorial Department)
