Written by Masaki Masuda (@maskin)
On May 13th, during their second quarter earnings briefing, Dwango reported that Nico Nico Douga turned a profit during the last quarter.
Immediately after the briefing began, the official Twitter account, @nico_news, broke the news with the tweet “Nico Nico Douga kuro ji ka now” (Nico Nico Douga profitable now). While some users questioned whether or not the 4/1 tweet was simply an April Fool’s joke, speculations soon calmed once the briefing began to air. It was explained that an increase in Premium memberships had contributed to the company’s profits.
As of April of this year, Nico Nico Douga had 16,700,000 registered members, 772,000 paid Premium members (paying 525 yen per month, or using prepaid cards amounting 1680 yen for a period of 90 days), and 5,060,000 mobile members, the latter of which has increased at a rate of 120,000 per month. Of every two people in their twenties, one is a Nico Nico Douga user. 32% of users are female, and the trend is increasing.
The daily PV average is 3,630,000 PV, and the daily visitor average is 240,000. Each visitor stays on the site for approximately 79.3 minutes. (Live broadcasts contribute largely to this number. Visits to traditional videos stay approximately 38.6 minutes.)
Director of Nico Nico Douga, Takeshi Natsuno commented that “Profits for a single month were previously achieved in December 2009. This time, the profits were for an entire quarter. The regular increase in Premium members has been a large factor. Nico Nico Douga will continue to earn profits, however, because advertisers come in waves, we are conservative in our advertisement related budgeting for the second half of the fiscal year.
Dwango, which operates Nico Nico Douga, has also seen a rise in sales and profits for its game business. On the other hand, it’s portal site has seen losses in certain segments. In spite of this, according to their March 2010 half-year earnings report, their net profit was 8,670,000,000 yen–approximately four times more than in the past.
With many services forced to shut down, 2009 was a turbulent year for the Internet business industry. However, companies that can consistently develop their services and achieve profits are emerging. It seems it will be necessary to take it all in stride, or else view this as the establishing of laws for success within the industry.
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