Japanese gaming giant DeNa recently announced that its online manga reader, Manga Box has been downloaded more than 3 million times from the Google Play and iOS stores.
Along with the announcement, the company also highlighted Manga Box’s strong user engagement: on average, each user spends about 55 minutes on Manga Box. When you read a manga, you won’t be stopping at page 1. You’ll continue reading up to page 20, to the next volume, until it ends.
55 minutes!
Last January, it was reported that Manga Box has about 2 million downloads, a month after it launched globally. In just less than 2 months, the app raked in another 1 million extra downloads.
When it was first launched, Manga Box started out with 28 titles from various genres, including romance and spoof. The app also has dual language support. This means you can read the manga in Japanese or in English.
We previously wrote that the project was lead by Shin Kibayashi, who is also well known under various pen names, such as YuYa Aoki and Ryu Ryumon. As Aoki, he worked on the popular Getbackers series while as Ryumon, he served as the writer for Bloody Monday, which was eventually turned to an anime and a live-action series.
In order to attract returning users, Manga Box launches each manga in an episodic format.
For example, only the first chapter (episode) of the manga you are reading will be available today. For the next chapter, you will have to wait until next week. Because of that, the user will be encouraged to read the other titles every time he returns to the app.
Although DeNa is primarily a gaming company, its Manga Box app is among one of its non-gaming apps that has exploded in popularity. While the manga reader has seen much success, DeNa’s music app Groovy is unfortunately not doing well. Earlier last week, DeNA has announced that Groovy, which launched in March last year, will have most of its services (music streaming and purchasing) shut down except the user’s ability to play their own music.
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