Mobile Location Based Games to See Massive Growth in Japan
Location based services (LBS) garnered quite a bit of attention last year with new services like Foursquare and Gowalla battling over market share in America. While the hype over these services has lessened, LBS growth in Japan has not. Seed Planning, a market research and consulting firm, has published a report projecting market growth for mobile LBS in Japan. The research company estimates a 340 percent increase between 2010 and 2015.
位置情報連動サービス(LBS:location based services)は、アメリカのマーケとストアで争うっているFoursquareとGowallaのような新しいサービスとして、昨年から少しずつ注目を集めて来た。これらのサービスの誇大広告は減ってきたが、日本でのLBSの成長はそうではない。市場調査とコンサルティングファームのSeed Planningは日本でのモバイルLBSの市場の成長を反映したレポートを出版した。調査会社は2010年から2015年の間に340%の成長が見込まれると推定した。
位置情報サービス（ロケーションベースサービス = LBS）は、去年、Foursquare や Gowalla などの新たなサービスが米国市場でのシェア獲得のニュースで、大いに注目を浴びる結果となった。これらのサービスに対する熱は冷めやったのだが、LBS の日本での成長はまだまだこれからの勢いだ。マーケットリサーチとコンサルティング企業の Seed Planing は、日本でのモバイル LBS の成長についての詳しい報告内容を発表した。このリサーチ企業は、LBS は、2010年から2015年にかけて、実に340パーセントもの成長を遂げるであろうと予測している。
The LBS market accounted for 43 billion yen (560 million USD) in 2010 and is expected to expand to 147 billion yen (1.9 billion USD) by 2015. That growth, while substantial is not too surprising. Increase in LBS demand is roughly in line with anticipated smartphone adoption over the next few years. However, a closer look shows that the market isn’t growing simply due to an increase in smartphone users.
GPS functionality was introduced to Japanese feature phones in 2007. Location based services such as navigation predate the smartphone and the several year head start allowed the LBS market in Japan to grow to tens of billions of yen. In other words, new smartphone users were already potential LBS users and its not the change in handset which will drive growth. Future LBS market growth will instead be attributed to the popularity of smartphone specific services and LBS innovation. This can be seen when assessing Seed Planning’s category breakdown of the market.
将来のLBS市場は、代わりに、スマートフォン特有のサービスとLBSの革新性への人気をもとに成長していくだろう。これはSpeed Planningカテゴリーがマーケットで失敗したところからも分かる。
Although growth of the LBS market will be more or less proportional to smartphone usage, the growth of specific service types (e.g. navigation, games, etc.) is not. Some types of LBS are expected to see massive growth compared to other types. For example, the market for navigation is expected to not quite double by 2015 while the market for location based games is expected to increase many times over.
The major growth categories, as can be seen in the graph, are location information and location games. Location information is a crowded category filled with major players such as Yahoo and Sony. However, location based games currently see far less competition within its category (competition within mobile games in general is a different issue). Current LBS game companies are typically much younger and smaller. Colopl, a company I previously wrote about, is one example of a LBS game that’s popularity is growing. Other LBS games include Shirotsuku (Castle Builder) and iButterfly Plus.
Seed Planning’s full report can be purchased on through their website although its content is written in Japanese.
Seed Planningの完全なレポートは彼らのウェブサイトで購入できるが、内容は日本語である。
シードプラ二ングの完全なレポートは、彼らのウェブサイトを通して購入する事が出来るが、そのコンテンツは日本語で書かれている。
Seed Planning の前報告は、彼らのウェブサイト上から購入することができるが、前文日本語表記となっているのでご注意を。
