mixi is by far the most popular social networking service in Japan. It is operated by mixi, Inc., which is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Launched in February 2004 on the PC web and on mobile in September of the same year, it currently has more than 16 million members and generates more than 14 billion page views per month total.

The company has been highly successful due to its first-mover role in the social networking space in Japan, and its rapid innovation in terms of features and functionalities, and tailoring its service offering in different ways for the PC and mobile platforms.

Although it does feature approx. 40 simple Flash Lite games for added entertainment mixi Mobile -- as opposed to competitors mobagetown and GREE -- is not focused on mobile games, but is a service built around core social networking functionalities such as profiles, pages, blogs ("diaries"), friends, groups, photo and video sharing.

mixi's business model (both on PC and mobile) is mostly-advertising based, with only 10% of revenues generated via several premium features, some of which are only available on mobile.

When we published our original mixi research report in March 2007, only 30% of its traffic originated from mobile phones, and mobile-related revenues were minimal compared to the PC platform. A good two years down the line, 70% of mixi traffic are coming from mobile devices, and an estimated ¥1.5 billion (US$ 15.8 million) of mixi Inc.'s ¥2.98 billion (US$ 31.5 million) social networking-related quarterly revenues (as of FY08 Q4) are generated by the mobile version of the service.

Over the past two years, mixi has added a string of innovative features to the mobile version of its service, including premium content like decorated messages and branded profile templates, as well as (in response to rising competitive pressure from mobagetown and Mobile GREE) a portfolio of casual games.

In light of these developments, we have completely revised, expanded and updated our original mixi report -- this time around largely focusing on mixi Mobile, and only touching upon the PC version of the service where necessary. This is the only detailed research report available in English providing detailed analysis of the factors that have made mixi Mobile the market leader in mobile social networking in Japan. It includes step-by-step walkthroughs of all major features, insight into business model and financials, as well as into usage patterns and demographics, and analysis of the games portfolio.