Customer Requests Pull German Anti-Virus Software Maker into Global Expansion
Tokyo, December 2, 2010 - IT security expert Avira today celebrates the one-year anniversary of its Japanese subsidiary, Avira KK. Avira also announces that it now serves more than 2.5 million users in Japan.
Avira KK’s one year anniversary will be celebrated with an event at Xex Daikanyama. Avira KK has chosen to use the anniversary to show its appreciation to its first supporters in Japan, and has invited 100 users, out of more than 300 respondents in 4 days, to celebrate the occasion at an intimate event. Company founder and CEO Tjark Auerbach will personally greet attendees, and will conduct a technical workshop that discusses recent trends in Internet security.
“Our customers literally pulled us into Japan,” said Richard Yamamoto, VP Asia Pacific. “A couple of years ago we noticed that some of our customers had collaborated to translate our software and support pages into Japanese. Thousands of download requests then poured in, and when we passed 750,000 Japanese users we felt we had to set up an official office to support them. Today we celebrate our earliest loyal users.”
In appreciation for the support of users in Japan, Avira KK is currently offering a 50% Off Campaign for all of its products.
The complexity of the Japanese language makes it challenging for security software vendors. Also, Japanese users tend to send emails that are very rich in html, embedded pictures, ASCII art and other details which allow many places to hide spam, phishing and malware code. These two trends combine to make Japanese computer users more prone to localized attacks than other industrialized and Internet connected countries. Avira estimates that approximately 15 percent of malware and 14 percent of phishing URLs detected and blocked in 2010 were hosted in the Internet region APNIC (Asia-Pacific NIC).
