July 14, 2006 - Hatena Co., Ltd. (Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan) announced the opening of a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary "Hatena Inc." in Los Altos, California on the eve of the company's 5th anniversary.
Hatena Co., a recognized leader in the Japanese Web services market, was founded in July 2001 in Kyoto, Japan and moved to Tokyo in April, 2003. Hatena now has 21 employees, and offers 13 web-based services including its highly popular weblog hosting and social bookmarking services. Hatena's web site (www.hatena.ne.jp) currently has about 8 million visitors per month and 430K registered users, almost 100% of which are Japanese.
The company has become one of the most desired places to work at due to its highly innovative and dynamic culture.
Hatena Inc. was established in the U.S. with the following objectives:
1. Expand its audience and offerings to the global market 2. Research cutting-edge Internet and other computing technologies 3. Develop relationships with leading US Internet companies
Junya Kondo, CEO of Hatena Co., will also assume the office of CEO of Hatena Inc. Hatena Co. will continue to run its operations and business from their Tokyo headquarters.
According to Junya Kondo:
"Since we moved our offices from Kyoto to Tokyo, we've expanded our business significantly, and have released many services such as 'Hatena Bookmark. But all of those services, while providing us with most of our revenues, were based on ideas conceived and developed in Kyoto. To accelerate our innovation and pursue our mission of providing valuable and meaningful services to the world, I believe we need to interact and learn from the world leaders of internet technology, both individuals and companies, located in Silicon Valley"
Media contact: Reiko Kondo hatenapr@hatena.ne.jp
