Why is Facebook difficult in Japan?

Although it has been a dominant social network in most countries, Facebook has so far suffered 'lust' to look at Japan, the very fertile market of online advertising and e-commerce.

According to statistics from socialbakers , in the US, more than 60% of the country's Internet users are members of Facebook , in Japan, this number is just over 2 million people - about 2 % of their netizens. With the new valuation of 50 billion USD by reputable investment bank Goldman Sachs and pouring 450 million USD in investment, it is considered a big failure of Facebook to conquer the Japanese market.

But why can't Facebook go deeper into this market? Does the Japanese dislike social networks? Absolutely not, because Mixi, Gree and Mobage-town - the ' Made in Japan ' social networks all have at least 20 million members.

According to analysts, the main reason Facebook is not welcome in Japan is the cultural difference . Japanese websites consider it a natural thing for users to sign up to use their services with fake information to hide their identity, while Facebook considers it an undesirable job, even prohibited

In 2010, a survey of users' social networking habits in 11 Asia-Pacific countries said that the average of the region per person is only about a quarter of online friends. is the real best friend. Meanwhile, in Japan, there are more than 50% of users said that no one is real friends in their social network friends list.

'Facebook is facing a real challenge ,' said Shigenori Suzuki, an analyst with Nielsen / NetRatings, ' Here they meet really strong but stronger competitors than the Japanese Internet culture. different '.

One of the motives for Goldman Sachs to price Facebook up to US $ 50 billion and pouring US $ 450 million into this is because the social network has planned to " attack " the Japanese market - the joint venture. The revenue of online advertising has reached $ 8.5 billion in 2009.

Zuckerberg promised investors that Facebook will close the gap in Japan but it doesn't seem easy. There, every domestic social network has 10 times as many members as Facebook and when they are warm , it is hard to convince them to move to a new home, and these networks are also translating. move in the direction of Facebook - allowing third-party applications to operate on their platforms.

But the door is not completely closed. Recently, another ' imported ' social network, Twitter, has also begun to gain success in Japan, marking the 10 million users in July 2010. However, Twitter is also successful because it does not require users to disclose personal information.

To become more friendly with Japanese users, Facebook has adjusted some of the features of its services such as adding blood group display, calling on volunteers community to translate into Japanese, opening offices in Tokyo . But some users still complain that Japanese is on Facebook . silly and make them uninterested.

' I think it is necessary to have something special for Facebook to convince the Japanese that it is not too scary to disclose their identity online, even if it is useful. At that time, Facebook's chances of success came out , 'said Toshihiko Michibata, an e-commerce and social media consultant.

In fact, Facebook still has an advantage and that may be what makes them more confident when deciding to conquer Japan: The Japanese often show great interest and enjoy new things. Meanwhile, domestic social networks like Mixi are aging, the growth rate has slowed, advertising revenue has decreased and investors' confidence has also decreased, 3 in the last 4 quarters. most of the profits have dropped and their stock prices have dropped by 70% compared to when they were new IPOs (2006).