Japan smartphone game business

Japan top grossing smartphone apps

5 top listed smartphone app companies have combined market cap of US$ 14 billion (excluding LINE)

LINE is currently a private company and LINE’s company value is generally estimated in the US$ 10-15 billion range, so if we include LINE, the combined market value of Japan’s top 5 smartphone game companies is on the order of US$ 24 – 29 billion.

Top grossing apps in Japan’s iPhone and Google Play/Android app stores on June 6, 2015

Japan’s smartphone app market is the world’s largest in terms of cash revenues according to AppAnnie. Lets analyze which apps are at the top-grossing in the world’s largest app market.

Japan game market report (398 pages, pdf-file)

iPhone app store top grossing ranking (June 6, 2015)

  1. Monster Strike by MIXI
  2. Puzzle & Dragons by GungHo
  3. Final Fantasy Record Keeper by DeNA
  4. LINE by LINE Corporation
  5. Actual powerful pro baseball by KONAMI
  6. all 25 top-grossing iPhone apps on June 6, 2015

Google Play Android app store top grossing ranking (June 6, 2015)

  1. Monster Strike by Mixi
  2. Puzzle & Dragons by GungHo
  3. LINE Disney tsumu tsumu by LINE Corporation and Walt Disney Corporation
  4. White Cat Project by Colopl Inc.
  5. Sword and sorcery. Logres of Swords and Sorcery – original popular online RPG by Marvelous Inc.
  6. all 25 top-grossing Google-Play store Android apps on June 6, 2015

Market capitalization of the companies involved:

  • Mixi: YEN 443 billion (US$ 3.5 billion)
  • GungHo: YEN 580 billion (US$ 4.6 billion)
  • LINE: unlisted
  • Konami: YEN 324 billion (US$ 2.6 billion)
  • Colopl: YEN 312 billion (US$ 2.5 billion)
  • Marvelous: YEN 86.8 billion (US$ 0.7 billion)

Analyzing the market capitalization of these companies, it is obvious that a large part – or all – of the value is in the smartphone games.

As an example, Mixi’s core business was the mixi Social Network, which lost weight with the success of Facebook in Japan, until the breakthrough success of its Monster Strike game during FY2014.

How are foreign companies doing in Japan’s smartphone app market?

Disney achieved consistently high rankings in cooperation with LINE for the tsumu-tsumu game.

Next highest ranking foreign game is the Finland based, 73.2% SoftBank owned, Clash of Clans by Supercell on rank 12.

Japan game market report (398 pages, pdf-file)

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