Popular platform dominates mobile social time in Japan
Japanese social platform Line is not only the country’s most popular social site. According to research, it also dominates the mobile screen time of the country’s smartphone users.
Based on July 2016 smartphone app research from Japanese software firm JustSystems, Line is the country’s most frequently used social media app across all age groups. With the exception of those between the ages of 15 and 19, 70% or more social media app users in Japan mentioned the social platform as their most frequently used social app, beating out other favorites like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook by wide margins.
JustSystems is not the first organization to confirm the popularity of Line among smartphone users in Japan. May 2016 research from Mobile Marketing Data Lab points to the continued appeal of Line among the country’s increasingly app-hungry consumers, with more than 81% of men and nearly 93% of women mentioning Line as their preferred social media app.
The continued popularity of Line in the market also looks likely to be a key factor as more social platforms look for ways to monetize their mobile user bases through advertising and ecommerce. As JustSystems discovered in its research, Line also controls a majority of the purchases made via social media apps. While the number of social media app users who make purchases using such services is still small, more than 16% of total respondents mentioned Line was their first choice for conducting transactions.
