Mixi Inc. will shore up its faltering earnings by seeking new businesses and doing away with complacency in the face of stiff competition from Facebook, incoming President Yusuke Asakura said Friday.
Asakura, who will take the helm of the domestic social-networking site starting in June, said the company will offer 50 more smartphone apps based on its services, up from two, as part of its diversification drive and increase paid gaming content.
The company is anticipating a roughly 60 percent fall in group operating profit, a gauge of income from its mainline operations, in the business year ending next March.
Asakura, 30, who joined Mixi in 2011 after running his own company, said Mixi underwent a sharp business expansion in 2006 and was obsessed with maintaining the status quo, which made it difficult to undertake radical reforms.
“I would like to create a corporate culture for ‘perpetual changes’ to challenge something new,” Asakura said.
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