It’s been less than a week since Evernote unveiled its dedicated Chinese service, but already downloads of standalone Yinxiang Biji app are “off the charts”, according to Troy Malone, the company’s general manager in Asia Pacific.

Ordinarily, Evernote was adding around 4,500 new users per day to its 1.1 million user base in China but, following the launch, downloads there have rocketed. Based on the first week, Malone says that daily new user numbers in China have been greater than its two biggest markets — Japan and the US — combined.

“The US and Japan have traditionally been by far our largest user registrations, but China just eclipsed both of those. It’s like we unlocked a whole new Earth that we didn’t even know existed,” Malone told The Next Web.

At this early stage Evernote is, understandably, not revealing raw user numbers, however Malone is confident that the new service will see it attract new users at higher rates than before, even as the initial burst of interest quietens as the launch effect wears off.

Evernote will continue to offer its US-based service in China, while giving users the option of a more localised experience through Yinxiang Biji, but the company had to make the move in order to realise its potential, according to Malone.

“It got to the stage where we just couldn’t ignore it any longer,” he says, and the new service will provide a faster and more customised service, with the team working with local developers to build bespoke features for Chinese users.

Any move to China brings up security issues, of course, and Evernote CEO Phil Libin recently admitted that the company would likely be unable to stop authorities making legal requests for user data.

Indeed, the blog post announcing the new service contains an important warning for prospective Yinxiang Biji users:

The laws and practices controlling data stored on servers in China are evolving rapidly and Yinxiang Biji will comply with Chinese regulations applicable to the service. This means users of Yinxiang Biji should be aware that Chinese authorities may have the right to access their data according to current regulations.

China is the latest market that Evernote is focusing on but it already has a number of notable successes across Asia, thanks to a policy of scaling early in markets where it sees user growth.

The company has 6 million registered users in Japan, which is serviced by an office of 8. Elsewhere, it has a team of two in South Korea and has just hired a pan-Asia marketing executive who is primarily tasked with helping to build the service across the Greater China region.

Japan’s leading operator DoCoMo has announced a series of cloud based services that will soon launch under its new ‘docomo cloud’ initiative, that seeks to tap into the country’s growing smartphone market.

DoCoMo has been working on language translation technology for some time and, on June 1, it will introduce a Mail-Hon’yaku-Concier service that helps non-Japanese readers. The application will translate SMS, email and social network messages between Japanese and English, Chinese and Korea using cloud-based technology, the company says.

Focusing on storage, the carrier is preparing an iCloud-type ‘Photo Collection’ service that will allow users stash to up to 5 GB of content in the cloud. As is standard, stored multimedia will be accessible from a range of devices, PCs and Macs.

DoCoMo says that Photo Collection will include facial recognition technology, to help tag and label photos, while the service will integrate with popular third-party services, including Evernote.

The final update, which will come in August, will bring multiple device download options to the carrier’s dmarket content store. The change will mean any items purchased from the video, music, book or anime stores can be download to more than one device registered to each user, without cost.

The company will also sharpen its Siri-like service Shabette Concier to provide better answers on a range of topics. The DoCoMo service beat Apple to supporting Japanese and the carrier says it has been download 2 million times in its initial 10 weeks.

Right now, however, there is no plan to put Shabette into English and it will remain open to Japanese instructions only.

Japan’s smartphone market is surging and recent growth of 28 percent percent in the last quarter, means that one in four mobile device is now a smartphone, according to a comScore report.

DoCoMo is hugely influential in Japan, where its 60 million subscribers give it more than 50 percent maker share. The services are likely to be a boost to DoCoMo’s LTE service — which passed 2 million subscribers in March — with 4G users enjoying faster speeds and more efficieint services.

Just yesterday, Chinese Web giant Baidu revealed its new cloud computing push with a new operating system, app store and smartphone all coming soon.

Update: The operator has also unveiled a series of new devices, but still it has no agreement to offer the iPhone. From the press release on its website:

NTT DOCOMO, INC. announced today its 2012 summer lineup of 19 models for launch in or after June, including 16 smartphones, a tablet and a mobile phone for children as well as a mobile Wi-Fi® router, many of which will be compatible with DOCOMO’s Xi™ (read “Crossy”) LTE mobile service.

Flipboard announced that it is adding audio to its blockbuster social magazine but another important detail that the company also revealed today is the launch of a fully localized app in Japan, as it continues to tap into international demand for the service.

Japan will be the second Asian market to get its own local app — following the launch in China last December — and the move sees the company focus in on the country’s growing market, where smartphone device owner grew 28 percent in the last quarter.

Updated below with details of the service and partners.

There are plenty of ingredients for success in Japan. Apple’s products are particularly popular in there, and the iPhone was the biggest selling smartphone in 2011, selling more than 7 million units.

Equally, looking at rival products, Japan has plenty of scope for Flipboard to develop. The country is Evernote’s second largest market, for example, where it has upwards of 6 million users there, demonstrating a healthy interest in content-related apps and services.

The upcoming launch of Android app will also be a key initiative in Japan, where the Google-owned operating system accounts for 61 percent of active devices, according to a recent comScore study.

Flipboard CEO Mark McCue recently revealed that the number of downloads in China is close to surpassing the US, and the company is focused on tapping into international potential, as other popular apps are doing too.

Flipboard is yet to provide further details of content partnerships in Japan, however we’ve contacted the company to ascertain more information about the new launch.

Update: Flipboard has got in touch with more details of the service in Japan, including news of its first confirmed content partner, Nikkei Business.

A spokesperson told us:

We launched the Japanese edition of Flipboard at 6pm PT, May 15, which as 10am Japan Time on the 16th.

The Japanese edition contains a Content Guide with hundreds of recommended publications and other content sources. We’ve been working with Nikkei Business to feature their content — they provided us with a special RSS feed for a more beautiful reading experience. We’re talking with a number of other publishers as well — so far the reception has been warm.

The company is aiming to bring Flipboard Pages, its service that turns content into digital magazines, to the country later this year and is expecting that the feature will bring new content partnerships.

Though it doesn’t yet have an office in the country, Flipboard says that it has “several team members in Japan on a regular basis” and is in the process of building a dedicated local team in the country.

Update 2: Flipboard’s blog post announcing the Japanese app has details of the ‘Cool Curators’ feature for Japan, which includes curated news and photos:

Cool Curators offers a unique peek into many of Japan’s premier tastemakers, among them tech journalist Toshinao Sasaki who’s known for curating from an extraordinary collection of sources. (Over 153,000 people follow him on Twitter.) We also love@tokyofashion’s Instagram feed of the out-of-this-world style coming out of Harajuku, the 500px photos tagged #Japan and Flipboard Picks—Japan, our own hand-curated feed featuring beautiful and interesting articles, photos and videos.

Japan’s ground breaking social network Mixi is reportedly set to be sold with its founder looking to offload his 55 percent majority stake in the company, according to tech blog Asiajin.

Japanese business site Nikkei reports that Mixi founder and CEO Kenji Kasahara is ready to call time on the site that he founded in 2004, with sources claiming potential suitors being lined up include mobile gaming giants GREE and DeNA.

The speculation has been rebuffed by Mixi, which issued a statement (in Japanese) denying the report, however the speculation has seen its share price rise 11 percent today, as per Bloomberg.

Mixi was Japan’s original social network and, while Facebook is all set to file its IPO this week, the company has been listed in its native Japan since 2006. However, it is under increasing pressure from a number of competitors, including Facebook.

Mixi still has 15 million active monthly users, says Japan tech watcher Dr. Serkan Toto, making it the most used, but Facebook has seen a recent surge. The US social network doubled its active monthly user base to reach 10 million per month, putting it on the brink of overtaking its older rival.

Twitter has also seen success in Japan but it is consider a Mixi ally, after the duo inked an advertising sharing deal to help ward off the growing threat of Facebook.

GREE and DeNA have recently posted significant earnings, with the latter seeing record annual sales of $1.82 billion, but it remains unclear how Mixi would be integrated. Its ‘tight’ social network — on which users have few connections, most of which are personal — is somewhat at odds with both gaming giants’ open, global gaming platforms.

As Dr. Toto points out, 80 percent of Mixi’s usage comes via mobile devices, boosted by the growth in smartphones in Japan, which makes it an attractive proposition. Equally, its legacy in Japan makes it one of the most recognisable social brands in the country.

Other possible buyers could include Yahoo Japan or one of the country’s mobile operators. A move from Facebook or Twitter seems unlikely given that both are already well positioned in Japan, and Mixi has no overseas footprint to offer.

GREE and DeNA both declined to comment on the speculation.

Yahoo Japan has rejected claims that Yahoo’s latest change of leader will impact upon the potential sale of its share in the Japanese joint venture, as the troubled Web firm looks to streamline its business.

Yahoo just let its sixth CEO in seven years go, after Scott Thompson finally paid the price for his erroneous resume. Yahoo has been linked with selling its 33 percent share of the Japanese venture — run independently of Yahoo Inc. — since before Thompson came on board, and a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that it doesn’t expect the change to have any impact in future sale talks, or its day-to-day business.

The company is reported to be keen to shed its investment in Yahoo Japan and Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba, both of which are successful in their own rights, to order to help smooth a potential sale of the company.

However, talks to sell the stake in Yahoo Japan broke down earlier this year, with the Wall Street Journal indicating that the company’s insistence on structuring a tax-free transaction was to blame.

Yahoo Japan is rated at $6 billion and enjoys a strong brand and a number of popular services.

Its Yahoo Japan portal is the country’s most visited site (according to Alexa) while recent data (PDF) indicates that mobile accounts for an impressive 20 percent of its monthly page views.

The company is speculated to be having more success with Alibaba. Bloomberg reports that Alibaba is close to raising a $3 million loan to buy-out the troubled US Internet firm and regain control of all (or a sizeable part) of the 27 percent share that Yahoo owns.

This year has seen Yahoo Japan make a big play for mobile, unveiling an Android app store and its own browser for the Google-owned operating system, which accounted for 69 percent of smartphones sold in the country during 2010.

Japanese operator Softbank is the largest stakeholder in Yahoo Japan, retaining more than 40 percent. Softbank offloaded its 4 percent stake in Yahoo Inc. last year, and has been long rumored as a possible buyer of the company’s investment in Yahoo Japan.

Yahoo’s quest to offload its Asian assets has been ongoing for some time and it is a key focus for the company, and has been a policy during the tenure of a number of company CEOs. However, its demands have scuppered any possible deal to date, so interim CEO Ross Levinsohn could yet have an influence on proceedings.

The Japanese mobile gaming giants DeNA, GREE and the remainder of the industry have confirmed that they will work with authorities to remove a lucrative but controversial gaming mechanism from their services.

As we reported over the weekend, the country’s Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA) is reportedly ready to clamp down on the “kompu gacha” system, which incentivises gamers to buy a range of virtual items based on the premise that they could win a ‘grand prize’, or rare item, for their efforts. However, DeNA’s CEO has today confirmed that the firm, and its peers, will work with authorities to phase the gambling element out of games and finalise a guideline by the end of May.

A DeNA spokesperson confirmed to The Next Web that Isao Moriyasu made the disclosure on a conference call today, as the company announced record annual revenues.

Isao Moriyasu, our CEO, did say at the beginning of the earnings conference that DeNA will phase out game mechanics categorized as ‘complete gacha’ given the social concerns. We don’t have an official English quote but he made clear that it’s the direction DeNA plans to take.

The spokesperson explained that, as the CAA is yet to make a public announcement on areas that it is looking to regulate, the company is unable to make specific comment. However, DeNA and the wider industry — represented by an alliance of social game companies — have pledged to work with authorities, including the CAA, to establish guidelines.

DeNA points out that it has already voluntarily reduced kompu gatcha in two of its “popular” titles, while it is planning to release guidance to help third-party game makers adhere to the upcoming requirements.

DeNA also denied claims that regulation will have significant impact on its business. The company argues that the games — which are hosted on its Mobage platform and not downloaded to devices — can be changed to adhere to the authorities’ requests, “we can implement other types of in-game events” the spokesperson explained.

When it comes to revenue there could be disruption. A Reuters article quotes Moriyasu disclosing that the company “does not know if we can maintain the growth that we have enjoyed to this point” without the titles.

Kompu gatcha games are thought to account for more than half of revenues from Japan, but no official data exists to fully quantify that. While it is true that DeNA, GREE and others are actively expanding their businesses outside of Japan’s saturated market, they still stand to lose significant income from domestic kompu gatcha regulation.

That’s without considering the damage that the scandal continues to do to their share prices, which lost significant value on Monday alone. The day saw GREE down 23.3 percent and DeNA down 20.1 percent.

Lower loses were incurred today – with GREE down 9.64 percent and DeNA down 1.33 percent — and GREE is generally seen as being more widely affected, as its platform and revenues have a greater dependency on the controversial kompu gatcha system.

DeNA’s comments echo recent remarks made from GREE president and founder Yoshikazu Tanaka, who lost $406 million from his own personal fortune from the stock drop. Tanaka also confirmed that the industry body will fully cooperate with the government and release guidelines for mobile social gaming by May 31, Businessweek reports.

We’ve reached out to GREE for further comment and will update this post with any new information that we’re provided with.

PayPal is keen to extend its reach into new markets, which includes a push into China, and now the online payment specialist has confirmed its move into Japan, as the Wall Street Journal reports.

In keeping with many other International firms, it has launched a joint venture picking leading operator SoftBank — which is involved in the successful Yahoo Japan JV — as its partner to create PayPal Japan. The companies will both invest $12.5 million (1 billion Yen) to take a 50-50 share of the new organisation.

Speaking at the launch press conference, Softbank CEO Masayoshu Son said that PayPal Japan would become ”the de-facto standard for online payment in Japan”, and clearly the duo have high hopes for the operations.

‘PayPal Here’, the company’s own smartphone reader that competes with the likes of Square, will come to Japan as the organisation looks to tap into the smartphone revolution in the country.

Japan’s mobile industry is often lauded as one of the world’s most advanced, having pioneered the mobile Web, however smartphone ownership is notably behind that of the West. Recent statistics from comScore suggest that now one in four now Japanese owns a smartphone device, with Android leading the way and accounting for 61 percent of active smartphones.

This lag in uptake has meant that mobile payments have, like electronic payments, yet to hit the mainstream in the country. Cash remains most used for transactions, despite a vibrant ecommerce industry, as the Independent explains:

E-commerce revenue sales there have increased steadily by about 17 percent every year since 2005 and are expected to grow by 10 percent annually through 2015. Online retailing giant Ratuken dominates the sector, with two thirds of Japan’s 90 million Internet users purchasing merchandise through the site.

PayPal revealed that it estimates that the country’s retail commerce market is worth $1.7 billion (134 trillion yen), and it is likely that China — where it awaits approvals to become the first overseas payment firm — will be its next focus, as it seeks beat its rival and further internationalize its service.

Just yesterday, PayPal and owner eBay opened a new global development center in Bangalore, India.

Over the weekend we reported that the Japanese government could be set to rule the lucrative ‘kompu gacha’ games genre illegal. It’s a move that could significantly impact the country’s mobile gaming firms, as it provides more than half of their revenues, but the effects have been particularly felt by the founder of one gaming giant.

Aged 35 and worth $1.3 billion, GREE founder Yoshikazu Tanaka is Asia’s nearest thing to Mark Zuckerberg. However, Tanaka — who presided over GREE $110 million acquisition of Funzio last week — just lost a sizeable portion of his wealth today, as Reuters reports:

Monday’s 23 percent fall, however, will wipe out about $406 million of Tanaka’s personal worth based on his 49 percent stake in the social gaming site.

The market reacted badly to the weekend’s news as game firms saw their share prices crash.

Of the most notable firms, GREE shares fell 23.3 percent, DeNA was down 20.1 percent, Japanese social network Mixi dropped 10.3 percent and games marker Cybernet lost 19.8 percent.

Across the games industry, 12 listed companies lost a combined $3.8 billion in market cap, with one firm — Drecom — down by almost 25 percent, as Japanese-based games expert Dr. Serkan Toto writes on his blog.

Kompu gacha is a system that incentivises gamers to buy a range of virtual items based on the premise that they could win a ‘grand prize’, or rare item, for their efforts. It is being investigated by the government run Consumer Affairs Agency (CAA)  as it may contravene laws that bar the use of lottery-style sales incentives.

The CAA is yet to announce its report — and consequently no firms have issued statements — but, if today is any indication, the impact of proposed action could be massive.

Earlier this year, DeNA and GREE saw quarterly revenues of $445 million and $545 million (respectively)  from their worldwide business, and both firms are all set to continue their global push this year. DeNA has begun launching games in the US, while GREE’s new global gaming platform is due to be launched this quarter.

It remains to be seen how the report and possible regulation in Japan will affect either company. GREE and DeNA will announce their latest earnings this week, but the upcoming CAA report is certain to cast its shadow.

Android’s Droid browser may be the world’s most popular mobile browser, thanks to the phenomenal rise of the Google-owned operating system, but it has a just got a very worthy competitor in Japan’s growing smartphone market after Yahoo Japan released a rival Android browser.

The Yahoo! Browser has been launched by Yahoo Japan, as announced on its blog [in Japanese] — via Asiajin – and it certainly has potential to steal market share from Droid, and thus Android-based revenue from Google.

While Yahoo may be struggling worldwide, having recently cut 2,000 jobs, its Japanese presence — which is a joint venture between operator Softbank and Yahoo – enjoys greater popularity and success in the country.

As we reported in our most recent Last Week In Asia round-up, strong income from advertising, payments and other service, saw Yahoo Japan’s sales hit $3.6 billion in its last fiscal year, giving it $1.15 billion in profit.

The Yahoo Japan Web portal is the country’s most visited site (according to Alexa), while public data (PDF) indicates that mobile is already a big part of its push, accounting for 20 percent of its monthly page views.

It is difficult to put a valuation on the mobile advertising market and browsers specifically but, to give an insight into its significance, a Google report recently claimed 45 percent of Japanese mobile owners make purchases via their device, while 90 percent use it to look up local information.

While apps are an important part of the smartphone experience, the device’s browser remains a key channel to take users to sites and provide content and information.

If Yahoo can leverage its popularity and get the browser installed onto enough devices that it rivals Droid, then it could impact on Google’s revenues from mobile in Japan.

This year, Yahoo Japan pledge to sharpen its offering for smartphones and Android — which reportedly accounts for more than 60 percent of new smartphone purchases — is its primary focus.

The company previously introduced an Android app store, which will boost local developers and apps as well as Android, and now it is looking to increase its mobile footprint with the browser.

Note: Though we mention that Yahoo Japan is a joint venture, it’s worth stressing again — per some of the insightful comments below — that it is run completely independently of Yahoo Inc (worldwide). So the chances of an Android browser cropping up outside of the land of the rising sun are about as likely as an official Safari browser landing in Google Play.

It’s been a busy last month or so for Japan-based mobile messaging service Line, which has announced that it has seen 10 million new downloads since April, taking its total number of registered users past the 30 million mark.

We last covered the service in early April, when its original messaging app for Android and iOS hit 20 million downloads. In the proceeding month, the company has been busy growing its reach with the extension of the app beyond smartphones through the release of a number of complementary apps.

Earlier this month, NHN, the firm behind the app, took Line beyond smartphones with the launch of a PC/Mac client and a Web-based service for tablets. Users of the new access points, both of which were launched in early April, are still required to sign up to the app, but can now enjoy increased access to the Line service.

NHN says that the new additions have helped it continue to grow at a rate of 1 million new downloads per week globally, and that has seen it pass 30 million user registrations just 10 months after launch.

That growth has already seen Line hit 20 million downloads before a number of better know sites and services, and NHN hasn’t stopped there.

NHN expanded its offering beyond the mobile messaging app with the introduction of two new apps that take Line into new areas. The company, which is the Japanese affiliate of Korean Web giant Naver, introduced greeting card app ‘Line Card’ (for Android and iOS) and Android-only Instagram-like ‘Line Camera’ earlier this month.

The new additions have continued its popularity with the free apps proving to be a success worldwide, particularly in Asia. Line Card’s 1.5 million downloads saw it become the top free app in the App Store across five countries, while Line Camera was Google Play’s number one camera app in 15 countries, having seen 1.1 million downloads.

With Android, iOS, tablets, PCs and Macs now all covered by NHN, and two additional apps out on the market, we are expecting to see a less frantic period from the company as it looks to scale its services up across the globe.

➤ Line [App Store/Google Play] | Line Card [App Store/Google Play] | Line Camera [Google Play]