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Japan's DeNA claims it makes 30 times more per user than Facebook, 15 times more than Zynga

November 4, 2010 11:42 PM
Dean Takahashi
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Japan-based social game maker DeNA announced its earnings today and revealed some interesting comparisons.

Revenue for the quarter was $336 million, up 216 percent from its fiscal second quarter a year ago. That puts it on pace to hit $1.25 billion by year’s end, largely from revenue from virtual goods for its social mobile games.

But the real whopper is this claim: The company says its average revenue per user is 30 times what Facebook gets from its users and 15 times what Zynga gets. That’s pretty astonishing, since both Facebook and Zynga are widely admired for their ability to snag lots of users with their social software and then make money from them through various tactics.

DeNA, headed by chief executive Tomoko Namba, is trying to move to the international stage in order to compete head-on with Facebook and Zynga. The company runs its Mobage-town social mobile portal in Japan. But it recently agreed to acquire US-based iPhone game publisher Ngmoco for $403 million as part of a bid to become global.

Operating income in the quarter ended Sept. 30 was $168.7 million, up 342 percent from last year. The numbers show that Japan’s mobile users are light-years ahead of Western users in embracing the virtual goods free-to-play model. With such games, users play for free and pay small amounts of real money for virtual goods inside games.

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    I wonder how DeNa knows what Facebook's and Zynga's average revenue per user is?

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    Japan is years ahead in technology compared to any other market. Their public is much more willing and used to video games and their mobile devices.Still interesting to see how they will do in the US market.

  • Tammagochi

    Hmmm ahead on technology perhaps but DeNA co have a lot to learn about customer service. DeNA treated Bandit nation, Big cafe, Big Loot and numerous other customers so badly. They were still proclaiming BigLoot as the fastest growing social MMORPG even after they had stopped taking customers money! (Which was bearly a week before they went off line! ) They have a history of treating mobile customers very badly and have been investigated for sharp practice in Japan.

  • http://gametheoryonline.com/2011/11/09/japan-and-social-games-a-bright-future/ Japanese Social Games: Japan’s Bright Free Gaming Future | Game Industry News, Interviews and Videos | Game Theory

    [...] Manufacture, Marvelous Entertainment, and ex-Capcom employee Keiji Inafune. Even more noteworthy is DeNA’s recent claim that it makes 30 times more per user than Facebook, and 15 times more than the Western [...]

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