GREE and PayPal Announce Alliance
Clearly a win-win-win proposition for GREE, PayPal & Japanese mobile gaming – Congrats!: http://bit.ly/t6mkeH
GREE and PayPal Announce a Strategic Business Alliance
TOKYO, Japan – December 14, 2011 – GREE and PayPal, the world’s largest online payment provider, are pleased to announce that they have agreed on a strategic business alliance to facilitate GREE’s global expansion of its mobile social gaming platform to over 103 million active PayPal™ accounts in 190 markets worldwide. At the same time, PayPal will be a payment option for up to 150 million registered gamers on social networking service (SNS) GREE worldwide. GREE’s users will be able to use PayPal to buy GREE’s virtual currency, “coins,” which can be used to play and make purchases in over 7,500 games for Android™ and iOS smartphones. As the first step of the strategic business alliance, PayPal becomes available on SNS GREE for Japanese smartphone from December 14th, 2011. PayPal’s global payment service will be gradually introduced to GREE’s mobile social gaming platforms, GREE Platform in North America and other countries in the future.
Yoshikazu Tanaka, founder and CEO of GREE, said, “GREE is developing a global business to establish a social gaming platform to reach one billion users all over the world. We are expecting to accelerate our global plans through this business alliance with PayPal as it is used by millions of global users as a safer, faster way to pay on mobile devices.”
Rupert Keeley, PayPal’s Senior Vice President of Asia Pacific, said, “As the world’s favorite digital wallet, PayPal is leading the charge for mobile commerce with over US$3.5 billion expected in mobile transactions globally this year. We are delighted to have established this strategic business alliance with GREE, the leading mobile SNS in Japan, as it encompasses three major payment trends we are driving today — mobile, social and digital. Through our vision to enable commerce anytime, anywhere and any way, PayPal is the best payment partner for GREE to be a global mobile social gaming platform for millions of users in Japan and around the world.”
Through this alliance, GREE will offer PayPal to its customers as it rolls out its new worldwide mobile social gaming platform, GREE Platform, to expand its business overseas. With the rapid growth of smartphones such as Android and Apple iOS devices, mobile users can now have access to a greater variety of digital content worldwide. The integration of PayPal’s more convenient and secure payment solution, along with its worldwide user base and international brand recognition, is an integral part of GREE’s strategy to provide the world’s best mobile social gaming experience.
PayPal, on the other hand, aims to expand its user base in Japan by integrating its faster, safer digital wallet on Japan’s leading mobile social network. According to a recent PayPal survey on online shopping behavior, 52% of Japanese mobile shoppers said “the mobile screen size is too small” and 25% of Japanese mobile shoppers said “the mobile transaction is not safe enough”, highlighting convenience and security as key areas to improve for mobile commerce in Japan. Using PayPal, GREE’s users in Japan can now purchase social games on their smartphones in as little as two taps and avoid the inconvenience of entering their credit card details on a small mobile screen. At the same time, PayPal does not share its users’ credit card details with any merchants and no financial info is stored on the mobile device, providing a more secure mobile payment transaction.
To celebrate the business alliance, GREE and PayPal will be running a joint month-long marketing campaign giving 200 users each 10,000 coins in a lucky draw if they purchase “coins” using PayPal from January 11, 2012 to February 10, 2012 (terms and conditions apply).