Japan
While Mixi is the leader in PC SNS, Mobage Town is Japan's no.1 Mobile SNS. Mobage Town is a huge success in mobile-oriented Japan which enables community-driven activities via mobile. Their "killer-app" is the wide range of free games which build up the initial user base.
Rolled out in February 2006, around 9 (or 11) million subscribers.
Korea
Mugeta follows (or copies) Mobage Town's footsteps in Korea by providing free mobile homepage, avatars and of course mobile games. Its service provider is partnering with KTF (Korea no.2 mobile carrier) to stimulate the growth of the service.
Malaysia?
We don't have any major local mobile SNS provider yet, perhaps Malaysians are still quite reluctant to mobile service usage. This could be due to:
- Expensive mobile data rate. Rumours saying that Maxis is preparing to roll out "attractive" mobile data plan.
- Lack of localized mobile "killer-app". So far, Pacmee is one of the early entry into this arena with its "mobile Twitter".
(Image Source)
Our market size? 90.6% mobile penetration rate from population of 27.7 million = 25 million subscribers! That is definitely a huge potential (compared to internet broadband at least).
In this era of globalization, may be cloning a successful foreign business model is worth an effort?
UPDATE: Mobage Town has just launched its global service MobaMingle, in English. But targeting 70 countries? That would be tough in terms of localization and marketing. However, it is currently accepting registration from only 5 countries, namely US, UK, France, Germany and India.
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