Yesterday Yahoo Japan announced that its Yahoo Transit application, which tells you directions and transit times for walking, trains, buses, and planes, has surpassed the 10 million downloads milestone as of May 18th.
The app was initially released for iOS way back in 2008, and for Android back in 2011. It consistently ranks among the top tier of apps in iOS’s navigation category and Google Play’s transportation category in Japan.
Sega Networks will hold a collaboration event in the month of June around its mobile soccer game ‘Saka tsuku shoot’ [1] here in Japan with the British pub franchise The Hub, across its 66 locations in the country. When a customer buys a drink, they’ll receive a card with a serial code, which could mean a rare player addition for gamers if they’re lucky. Also in June, there will be a ‘Hub Cup’ held within the game itself, where players can also get rare ‘gacha’ cards for a chance to get new players for use in the game. With the World Cup starting next month, I assume that the Hub will see lots of customers (the time difference with Brazil is a bit rough), and perhaps these are just the audience that Sega is trying to reach. It’s a smart maneuver on the part of Sega Networks to get their game in front of enthusiastic football fans. The sports title was released by Sega Networks late last year, peaking as the number one iOS sports app in Japan back on May 15th, and as the fourth ranked Android sports game in Japan this past Monday (May 26th). If you’d like…
Sega Networks will hold a collaboration event in the month of June around its mobile soccer game ‘Saka tsuku shoot’ [1] here in Japan with the British pub franchise The Hub, across its 66 locations in the country.
When a customer buys a drink, they’ll receive a card with a serial code, which could mean a rare player addition for gamers if they’re lucky. Also in June, there will be a ‘Hub Cup’ held within the game itself, where players can also get rare ‘gacha’ cards for a chance to get new players for use in the game.
With the World Cup starting next month, I assume that the Hub will see lots of customers (the time difference with Brazil is a bit rough), and perhaps these are just the audience that Sega is trying to reach. It’s a smart maneuver on the part of Sega Networks to get their game in front of enthusiastic football fans.
The sports title was released by Sega Networks late last year, peaking as the number one iOS sports app in Japan back on May 15th, and as the fourth ranked Android sports game in Japan this past Monday (May 26th).
If you’d like to try out the game for yourself, it’s a free download for both iOS and Android. Check out the game’s promo trailer below.
See the original story in Japanese. Last week I had a chance to visit Bangkok on the way back from an IT conference in Phuket. And while it’s hard to focus on startups and entrepreneurships during a time of political crisis, I decided to push on and speak with some local leaders in the tech space while I was there. Thailand is, of course, a country to be reckoned with when discussing global social media trends. The market has a great impact on the industry as a whole, with the country representing the world’s second largest user base of the Line messaging app. Many foreign entrepreneurs, including Japanese ones, have launched startups right here. BuzzCommerce’s Shinsuke Wakai is one of these entrepreneurs. For over ten years, he has been working with local people and businesses in Bangkok. He launched a cosmetics-focused buzz media site called Cosmenet four years ago, and has assisted cosmetics brands from the West, Thailand, and Japan market their products among local consumers. Cosmenet is very much Thailand’s answer to @Cosme, the Japanese cosmetics online giant. Brands in the cosmetics industry have been heavily dependent on mass media (e.g. TV commercials and magazines) for their promotional activities….
Last week I had a chance to visit Bangkok on the way back from an IT conference in Phuket. And while it’s hard to focus on startups and entrepreneurships during a time of political crisis, I decided to push on and speak with some local leaders in the tech space while I was there. Thailand is, of course, a country to be reckoned with when discussing global social media trends. The market has a great impact on the industry as a whole, with the country representing the world’s second largest user base of the Line messaging app. Many foreign entrepreneurs, including Japanese ones, have launched startups right here. BuzzCommerce’s Shinsuke Wakai is one of these entrepreneurs.
Cosmenet
For over ten years, he has been working with local people and businesses in Bangkok. He launched a cosmetics-focused buzz media site called Cosmenet four years ago, and has assisted cosmetics brands from the West, Thailand, and Japan market their products among local consumers. Cosmenet is very much Thailand’s answer to @Cosme, the Japanese cosmetics online giant.
Brands in the cosmetics industry have been heavily dependent on mass media (e.g. TV commercials and magazines) for their promotional activities. But many have turned to Cosmenet as a means to reach out to potential customers in a more efficient way. Wakai feels that a media site should provide a neutral perspective to readers, so he has refrained from selling cosmetics on Cosmenet. But since many of the products introduced on the site are difficult to purchase in the city, his team has been receiving frequent inquiries about where to buy them.
So Wakai decided to develop an e-commerce site specifically focused on selling cosmetics from outside Thailand to young local women. It’s called BuzzCommerce. When you import and sell cosmetics, you typically are required to get approval from the food and drug administration in that country — and as you might expect, that takes time. But Wakai’s partner has helped a Japanese drug store chain import products to Thailand, so she is quite good at the requisite paper work, and that has accelerated their business’s launch.
In Thailand, we’ve already seen several notable e-commerce sites like Tarad (by Rakuten) and WeLoveShopping (by Thai telco True, inspired by Tarad). However, the majority of e-commerce deals in the country are typically traded between consumers directly using Facebook or Instagram. On BuzzCommerce, whether young women take to their service will make or break the business.
The company recently raised an undisclosed sum from East Ventures, and Wakai is now completely devoted to developing the e-commerce site. If all goes as scheduled, the web version will be launched by the end of June, with mobile apps will follow in August or September.
On a related note, many of you may recall that Singapore-based cosmetics e-commerce site Luxola raised from several investors earlier this week. In the Asian region, we’ve seen many other subscription-based cosmetic e-commerce services, as well as vertical buzz sites like Fashionguide in Taiwan.
Rocket Internet had been rapidly launching e-commerce services in the Asia region, but they have no portfolio company focused on this space after they sold GlossyBox to VanityTrobe in February of last year. I understand that this left market opportunities in the cosmetics industry in the region, which perhaps leaves room for BuzzCommerce to expand business beyond from Thailand if all goes well.
Via Gamebiz.jp, there’s news that the North American version of Gungho Online Entertainment’s hit mobile game Puzzle & Dragons has surpassed 4 million downloads. This isn’t an especially impressive figure, but as someone who has played the English version since it’s release [1], I’m continually surprised by the amount of fan engagement that I see on the game’s English Facebook page, in chat forums, and over on Reddit. Check it out and see for yourself. Puzzle & Dragons may only have a few million English-speaking fans. But they’re pretty hard core. In its home market of Japan, P&D has over 26 million users. I confess, I’m such a fan of the game that I have English and Japanese versions of the game running on my mobile. ↩
Puzzle & Dragon booth at Tokyo Game Show 2013
Via Gamebiz.jp, there’s news that the North American version of Gungho Online Entertainment’s hit mobile game Puzzle & Dragons has surpassed 4 million downloads.
This isn’t an especially impressive figure, but as someone who has played the English version since it’s release [1], I’m continually surprised by the amount of fan engagement that I see on the game’s English Facebook page, in chat forums, and over on Reddit. Check it out and see for yourself. Puzzle & Dragons may only have a few million English-speaking fans. But they’re pretty hard core.
See the original story in Japanese. Tokyo-based startup Hachimenroppi, which operates a fish delivery service for restaurants, announced yesterday that it has partnered with JCB, one of Japan’s leading credit card companies. Through this partnership, JCB will provide restaurants with credit purchase options and ease the process of buying fish from the delivery startup. Moreover, JCB will promote the startup’s service to its card member restaurants. Hachimenroppi buys fish from markets and brokers across the country and delivers it to Japanese restaurants or diners, according to specific needs. Unlike existing wholesalers, they balance supply and demand using digital tools, allowing restaurants to order fish based on their customers’ needs rather than submitting to suppliers’ convenience. We previously outlined the specific details about how it works, so please check it out if you’d like to read more. The company raised about $1.5 million back in October in order to hire talented staffers and accelerate system development. They appointed Kenichi Saito as CTO earlier this month, who previously served as CTO at Japanese shoe-focused e-commerce site Locondo. To date the company has been outsourcing their system development, but they plan to set up a system development department (led by Saito) where they…
Tokyo-based startup Hachimenroppi, which operates a fish delivery service for restaurants, announced yesterday that it has partnered with JCB, one of Japan’s leading credit card companies. Through this partnership, JCB will provide restaurants with credit purchase options and ease the process of buying fish from the delivery startup. Moreover, JCB will promote the startup’s service to its card member restaurants.
Hachimenroppi buys fish from markets and brokers across the country and delivers it to Japanese restaurants or diners, according to specific needs. Unlike existing wholesalers, they balance supply and demand using digital tools, allowing restaurants to order fish based on their customers’ needs rather than submitting to suppliers’ convenience. We previously outlined the specific details about how it works, so please check it out if you’d like to read more.
The company raised about $1.5 million back in October in order to hire talented staffers and accelerate system development. They appointed Kenichi Saito as CTO earlier this month, who previously served as CTO at Japanese shoe-focused e-commerce site Locondo. To date the company has been outsourcing their system development, but they plan to set up a system development department (led by Saito) where they can do most of that work in house. In addition to the iOS app, they are planning to launch an Android version, but now they are focusing on hiring Rails engineers. So if you are interested in working with an up-and-coming startup like this one, don’t hesitate to contact them.
To step up their sales and engineering efforts, the company plans to grow to a 50-person team by summer. According to founder and CEO Masanari Matsuda, he plans to allocate about 80% of the team to customer relations serving restaurants, and the rest to system development. He elaborated:
CEO Masanari Matsuda
In order to provide consumers with the best quality foods, I think restaurants shouldn’t be dominated by big companies. When an independent chef launches his own restaurant, he will be unable to buy ingredients on credit from wholesalers because that restaurant has no financial history. So our new service in partnership with JCB will help them a lot when starting out.
We’ll focus on fish delivery for the time being. However, our platform is receiving orders and updates from restaurants, which means we can enhance it to deal with a variety of food in the future, including rice, liquors, meat, vegetables, and fruits. As we know much about restaurants’ needs, we may even launch a new service sending cooks to restaurants.
The company has acquired 300 restaurants as of the end of last year. They expect to increase that to 1,000 restaurants by the end of this year, and 10,000 by the end of 2016. By 2020, they hope to generate over $3 billion in revenue, which accounts for almost 10% of the entire national fishery market volume.
NTT Docomo recently unveiled its new summer smartphone lineup, and included among its new handsets was the Arrows NX F–05F. Made by Fujitsu, this will be one of many Fujitsu phones that will feature a new Karada Life Pregnancy Support app targeting female users. According to Fujitsu today, the service will be available starting May 30th here in Japan. The application was developed by Fujitsu using APIs from Luna Luna, a service that millions of women in Japan use to be more aware of their menstrual cycles, by recording period timing and body temperature. In short, a range of services will be provided by both Fujitsu and Luna Luna, including estimation of menstruation and ovulation times (based on data from the previous two months) and lifestyle advice. There is also convenient body temperature management that makes use of wireless and automatic transmission of data from a thermometer [1] to smartphones (pictured below). Our readers may recall that we also saw Ateam release an app for women trying to get pregnant late last year. But it’s good to see more companies like Fujitsu get involved to provide more options. It’s interesting to watch more and more companies in Japan strive to…
NTT Docomo recently unveiled its new summer smartphone lineup, and included among its new handsets was the Arrows NX F–05F. Made by Fujitsu, this will be one of many Fujitsu phones that will feature a new Karada Life Pregnancy Support app targeting female users. According to Fujitsu today, the service will be available starting May 30th here in Japan.
The application was developed by Fujitsu using APIs from Luna Luna, a service that millions of women in Japan use to be more aware of their menstrual cycles, by recording period timing and body temperature.
In short, a range of services will be provided by both Fujitsu and Luna Luna, including estimation of menstruation and ovulation times (based on data from the previous two months) and lifestyle advice. There is also convenient body temperature management that makes use of wireless and automatic transmission of data from a thermometer [1] to smartphones (pictured below).
Our readers may recall that we also saw Ateam release an app for women trying to get pregnant late last year. But it’s good to see more companies like Fujitsu get involved to provide more options.
It’s interesting to watch more and more companies in Japan strive to serve female users. Just last month, for example, Amazon Japan launched a new female-focused store front to specifically target women and mothers.
Specifically, the Terumo Corporation’s WOMAN °C W520DZ thermometer, which is ostensibly not included. ↩
Rick Martin
Masaru Ikeda
