Japan: Miitomo off to a great start, most downloaded social network app on iOS

Miitomo was launched yesterday in Japan, and it looks like it’s off to a great start. According to App Annie (a business intelligence company and analyst firm, who monitors the mobile market), Miitomo was the most downloaded (free) social-networking app on iOS in Japan, yesterday (March 17th). It managed to do even better than Facebook and LINE, and is still leading today (March 18th).

According to Yasuhiro Minagawa (a spokesperson from Nintendo), Miitomo had a good start, and received very positive feedback. Unfortunately, he declined to provide any download numbers for the app (let alone data about microtransactions). Just like Nintendo explained yesterday, the app will evolve over time, as new updates are released.

All this is pretty good news for Nintendo, as Miitomo is its very first mobile app, and its launch marked the start of a new era for the company. For Atul Goyal, an analyst at the Jefferies Group, its good performance at launch should dispel all doubts regarding the relevancy of Nintendo’s brand in an era largely dominated by smart devices and in an extremely competitive market (which is one of the reasons it took so long for Nintendo to release anything).

For him, Miitomo is more than just a communication app, it’s also a platform Nintendo can use to distribute content based on its IPs. He explains that the company could also use it with third-party IPs in the future (though obviously Nintendo has announced no such thing yet).

Miitomo (Android, iOS) will be launched in Europe and North America before the end of the month.

Source: Yahoo News