Yahoo Japan challenges report on news apps, refuses to admit it is losing to two startups

Over the past 18 months, news curation apps have become a hot vertical in Japan’s startup world. The business strategy of these apps is simple – become a must-use website and see advertising dollars pour in. Firms like Gunosy, SmartNews, and Antenna have been competing nonstop for users and revenue, all the while toiling in Yahoo Japan’s enormous shadow.

Last week, Nielsen released a report on Japanese news apps, that showed Yahoo Japan’s news app in third place behind SmartNews and Gunosy in terms of monthly active users. The report was notable for firmly placing SmartNews (3.85 million) ahead of Gunosy (2.98 million), a reversal of fortune for Gunosy which seemingly had outpaced its rival. Yahoo News was left bringing up the rear with 1.87 million users.

Nielsen’s findings gained extra notoriety after Yahoo Japan published a blog post that tries to convince the reader the company is still light-years ahead of the startups (hat tip to IT Media). In it, Yahoo Japan says that the Nielsen findings are flawed because they only look at mobile app numbers. Astute readers might be wondering why Yahoo Japan is criticizing Nielsen for essentially fulfilling its function properly.

Yahoo claims that Nielsen should have included the general Yahoo Japan app, not to be confused with the Yahoo News app, which people also use to access news. Had that been included in the calculations, the Yahoo would have the satisfaction of towering over the startups with 12.2 million monthly users.

Of course the problem with this argument is that we must take Yahoo Japan at its word, biased as it may be. The company did not give the precise data showing how people use the general app for news.

Despite its protestations, in the pure news app category, Yahoo is losing major ground. Both SmartNews and Gunosy have a long way to go before they can truly threaten Yahoo Japan’s yearly JPY 80.8 billion (US$753 million) advertising revenue but it is clear that Yahoo Japan is all too aware of their encroachment.

See: If Japan’s SmartNews is just another news app, why is it valued over $100M?