CPI in Japan is three times higher than the American one

The price for installation in the Land of the Rising Sun is much higher than in the United States, said one of the vice-presidents of the Japanese company GREE.  

In an interview with Gamesbeat, Sho Masuda, GREE’s vice president of user acquisition, noted that the biggest difference between the Japanese and American mobile app markets is the size of the CPI.

“The price for installation in Japan is about $15, sometimes more. As for the United States, here we are talking about a dollar or two, a maximum of $5,” says Masuda. 

“We always try to make the ROI of the project positive. Does the user spend $15 in the app? So you can think about mobile, Internet, TV and even print advertising, but if we are talking about $ 5, then you have to think only about the effectiveness of the product itself,” adds the vice president. 

In turn, GREE itself is only considering the possibility of entering the non-mobile advertising markets for new users. At the moment, the company, which recently spent as much as $173 million on the acquisition of the Pokelabo studio, intends to work more closely with Internet advertising on desktop systems.

“CPM on PC has become cheaper over the past year. We’ll figure out how to use it properly – we can dominate this market,” Masuda says optimistically. 

When asked by Gamesbeat journalist Dean Takahashi if GREE is not afraid that the costs in the mobile application market will overtake the revenues, Sho Masuda replied: “as long as we invest a dollar and get two from them, we will invest in this market.”

GREE has been very active in the market lately: it is actively buying up American and Japanese companies and investing in card battles.