The Japanese language version of Facebook had more than triple the amount of visitors to its site in the past year according to comScore World Metrix.
The leading social network in Japan was Mixi.jp with 12.7 million visitors in June. Facebook, which recently launched a Japanese language version of the site, has seen significant growth in the past year, gaining 213 percent to 538,000 visitors. MySpace captured 1.2 million visitors, up 10 percent over a year ago; Orkut attracted 638,000 visitors and Gree brought in 455,000 visitors.
The top five social networks in Japan all saw positive growth except for Gree, which saw a 14 percent decline. MySpace grew 10 percent over a year ago and Mixi.jp had 3 percent growth.
“The competition between social networks in Japan is beginning to heat up with the recent introduction of the Japanese language version of Facebook,” said Maru Sato, managing director of comScore Japan.
“The popular social networking site’s launch of Spanish, French and German language sites earlier this year resulted in strong traffic growth in these markets. If this is a reliable indication, we can expect to see Facebook’s growth in Japan follow a similar trend.”
The number of visitors to Orkut is lower compared to other social networking sites in Japan, but it leads in engagement. The average usage days per visitor were 11.5; the average amount of time spent was 454 minutes, and average pages per visitor were 1,557.
“As these newer sites attract larger audiences and become more familiar in the Japanese market, engagement among their users will inevitably grow,” said Sato.
