Nikkei Business Online, an online version of business magazine under Nikkei group, on May 15 after the midnight reported that Mixi, one of Japan’s largest social networking service, a direct local competitor of Facebook, is on the table to sell itself.
Some social networking competitors, such like Gree and DeNA(who runs Mobage), who had turned over Mixi recent years in number of registered users and corporate values mainly by social games, were being proposed to participate in the bidding secretly, sources closed to financial interest told to Nikkei.
The share to be sold off Nikkei says is 55% of the company owned by the Mixi founder & CEO Kenji Kasahara. He established Mixi in 2004 and soon that becomes a giant business based on real friends network and advertising sales.
On May 5, 4 days ago, Mixi announced a board reshuffling, including Akinori Harada’s steps down from the co-representative director & vice-president, he has been leading Mixi’s recent major measures like Mixi Pages, Mixi Mall, etc.
Mixi promptly issued a short release saying “There are no such truth reported on a certain media.”
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