(Bloomberg) -- Shares of of MIXI Inc. surged to a six-and-a-half-year high on Tuesday after the Japanese mobile game and social network provider released a new SNS called mixi2.
The company’s shares rose as much as 8.5% on Tuesday after jumping 8% in the previous session. The stock touched ¥3,430 ($22) on Tuesday, its highest intraday price since June 2018.
MIXI said the new SNS will be “invitation-only,” going back to the system when it started its mixi service in 2004 of requiring another person to ask you to join — currently, would-be users just need to register to be able to use it.
The registration system makes it easier to use the system initially, but it’s led to an increase in spam mail. MIXI’s stock price had been stagnant since reaching ¥7,300 in 2017, the peak price since its listing.
“There are expectations that demand will return to domestically produced SNS due to the invitation-only system that reduces noise,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, senior market analyst at Matsui Securities Co. This is the first time in the 2020s that the shares are being bought on growth expectations, and they’re like a meme stock, he said. Those are equities that are popular with retail investors and tend to swing sharply.
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