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Korean Must Have Mobile App: Kakao Talk

There is probably one “must have” iPhone app in Korea and that app is Kakao Talk. Available for both iPhone and Android, Kakao Talk allows users to send and receive messages, photos and videos in place of SMS and MMS messages. There are numerous competitors in this field but Kakao has clearly risen to the top and cornered the local market.

When the iPhone was first offered for sale in Korea, WhatsApp was the leader in this field. WhatsApp was originally offered for free but later became a paid app sold for 99 cents. While it’s well worth the price, this was a large problem for the Korean market as many Koreans had difficulty with connecting their iTunes account with a credit card. This opened up an opportunity for Kakao Talk to become the leader by offering its app totally free.

Kakao Talk’s dominance was briefly threatened when the Samsung Galaxy S went on sale in Korea. This brought an influx of Android users into the market. At the time, m&Talk had both Android and iPhone versions of its messaging app while Kakao Talk was only offered for iPhone. Kakao Talk was able to roll out an Android version of the app shortly after and it was game over.

The dominance of Kakao Talk demonstrates an important lesson for the Korean market: localization is key. If WhatsApp had continued to offer its app for free in at least the Korean market, there is no doubt in my mind that WhatsApp would have a solid chance at being the dominant player in Korea. Personally, I think WhatsApp offers a better product and all of the early Korean iPhone users I knew had the app on their iPhone. Once the app went to 99 cents, I noticed a steep drop in the number of new WhatsApp users and a consistent increase in the number of Kakao Talk users.

It does not seem Kakao Talk is generating any revenue at the moment. They are probably going the route of building a product/service with critical mass and then finding a way to profit off it after. They’re definitely doing great on the critical mass part as their market penetration amongst iPhone and Android users in Korea must be past 90%. It will be interesting to see what type of revenue stream they try to build off of it.

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Posted on November 19, 2010 at 11:01 am

Categories: Mobile

Written by

A web media veteran and guru who has developed and marketed numerous, successful Web sites for both the Korean and Western markets. We’d tell you which ones, but then we’d have to kill you… and that’s that’s not the type of startup we’re supporting here. We can tell you, along with managing the Seoul Space web site and technical needs, Victor is currently preparing to launch a site called PUMPL in the Korean market. He is an avid Mac user and enjoys long walks on the golf course during his spare time.

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  1. Trackback by Kakao Talk: From 0 to 4 million users in 9 months | Seoul Space on December 3, 2010 at 1:58 pm

    [...] we covered Kakao Talk as the must have smartphone app in the Korean market. They’ve grown tremendously since they launched their product a mere 9 months ago and now, [...]

  2. Trackback by 7 Technology and Popular Culture Trends in South Korea: 2011 on August 9, 2011 at 3:33 pm

    [...] videos, share your location or group chat. While WhatsApp may be the darling of the west, in South Korea everyone with a smartphone uses homegrown KakaoTalk. The app is available for free on both [...]


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