One in Four Young Social Network Users in Japan Go Live
Use of Facebook Live Trails Niconico Slightly
A November 2016 survey of social network users in Japan ages 15 to 34 conducted by Video Research Ltd. for Dentsu found that about a quarter of respondents said they frequently or occasionally broadcast live on Niconico (a video-sharing site in Japan owned by dwango) and Facebook, while 22% said they did so on Line.
Meanwhile, similar services like the “Stories” features on Instagram and Snapchat—where users post photos or videos that are not recorded live and disappear automatically after a certain amount of time has passed—saw slightly lower usage.
For Instagram, 21.2% of respondents said they used the Stories feature frequently or occasionally, while 17.1% said the same for Snapchat, according to the survey.
eMarketer estimates that 50.5% of internet users in Japan used social networks in 2016, representing 41.7% of the population. eMarketer expects 51% of internet users in Japan will use social networks in 2017.
While the proportion of internet users in Japan who use social networks is lower than in neighboring China (where 76.1% used social networks in 2016, according to eMarketer), just 40.2% of the total population in China used social media last year.
South Korea, another digitally advanced country in the region, showed higher participation in social networks. eMarketer forecast that 65.3% of internet users and 56.8% of the population used social networks in 2016.
—Ben Clague
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