Thanks to Gen Kanai weblog for some interesting links concerning Mozilla’s marketing campaign in Japan. Naturally, the main Spread Firefox marketing page in Japanese is almost identical to the original English one.

Here’s the banner for “Spread Firefox in Akihabara.” Of course, Akihabara has become famous not only for its plethora of computer and electronic shops, but also for the ubiquitous ‘Maid Cafes‘ that have sprung up in the neighborhood. Here we have some images of girls dressed like maids hawking free CD-ROMS of Firefox. I do find it curious that the CD-ROM has ‘trial’ written on it, given that the software is freely available to download.

The “Spread Firefox” campaign has taken place in Akihabara, Shibuya and Kamakura, according to Mozilla’s Japanese events page.

According to onestat.com, Firefox’s global share of the browser usage market stands at 12.93% (Japanese article | English article). Although this is up 1.14% since the beginning of June 2006, Firefox’s Japan share still hovers around a paltry 4%. Blogger Himazu has some interesting thoughts concerning why Firefox’s penetration into the Japanese market has not yet been successful.

His is a post well worth reading, and Firefox’s Japan marketing a case well worth further examining…