Be the first to know. Get our weekly newsletter.

newsletter_popup Join 25,000 of your peers. Get our stories delivered to your e-mail inbox every week.
Edit Interests

Articles Selected for You

No unread stories
 
ViralBlog Logo
Close this box

Sign-up to get the content you like


Our readers can personalize ViralBlog in Zite alike ways, and schedule e-mail alerts to get the most relevant answers to their specific questions.

Choose your sign-up method:

Could not connect to Twitter. Refresh the page or try again later.

 

By signing-up you agree upon our terms and conditions

 
04/04/2009 by
7530 views

3 Asian Social Networks: $510 Million Revenues

Many marketers have prioritized social media marketing. If you read this article, you will probably understand the commercial power of social networks better. Three Japanese and Korean social networks have generated over $510 Million in virtual goods revenue in 2008.

Cyworld

In a recent study of Plus Eight Star we learned that 3 social networks have generated $510 million through virtual goods sales in 2008.

Other platforms are discussed without revenue figures and others are simply left out, so while we know the market generated more than the $510 million reported for 2008, the cap is likely significantly higher.


The virtual worlds that Plus Eight Star Ltd provided data for were as follows:

*Cyworld, Korea: $200 million in 2008 revenues, 22 million registered users,
valuation unknown.
*Mobile Game Town, Japan: $250 million in 2008 revenues, 12.6 million registered users, valuation $1.4 billion.
*Gree, Japan: $60 million in 2008 revenues, 8 million registered users, valuation $1.2
Billion.

Cyworld is the Korean cultural equivalent of Facebook or MySpace, with most Koreans between 15 and 30 years having a real-name profile page available. The virtual goods are part of the site’s rich graphical interface, which allows users to place mini-rooms, houses, and avatars directly onto their page as decorations.

The service was originally offered on the Web and later extended to mobile and has come up before in discussions of why MySpace and the other social networks need to be doing more with virtual goods.

Mobile Game Town is a mobile-only service, as the name suggests, of a sort that relies on Japan’s essentially 1:1 ratio in cell phone ownership and high penetration of powerful phones with Web features. The service uses free Flash-based online games to attract users.

Mobile Game Town reports that roughly 10% of its users spend on the service’s virtual goods, which are primarily used to customize a user’s avatar.

Gree is essentially similar to Mobile Game Town, though it also offers limited Web services. Also like Mobile Game Town, Gree is a publicly traded company that is highly valued as a result of its strong revenue streams. It seems odd that Gree’s market valuation is nearly as high as Mobile Game Town’s when it generates less revenue and has fewer users.

If you enjoyed this post or want to share your opinion: please leave your comment below or subscribe to our rss feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader. If you prefer daily updates connect to Twitter or for e-mail updates sign-up to receive our monthly newsletter.

Source: Virtual Goods News