KakaoTalk launched on March 18, 2010 KakaoTalk, which leapt from a national messenger to a comprehensive platform, turned 12 this year. KakaoTalk, which opened the era of free mobile messaging, is hastening to enter the global market based on the capabilities it has accumulated over the years.
Specifically, the goal is to go beyond the existing growth equation and find new growth engines in the global and metaverse with the future vision of Beyond Korea and Beyond Mobile.
KakaoTalk turns 12 this year. The picture is an image of KakaoTalks main features added. [Photo = Correspondent Jo Eun-soo]
◆On this day in 2012, KakaoTalk appeared on the Apple App Store.
On March 18, 2010, KakaoTalk was first released through the Apple App Store. Unlike the existing paid text messages, users reaction to KakaoTalk, which allows users to freely send and receive messages for free without a limit on the number of characters, was also hot.
Thanks to the explosive response, KakaoTalk has surpassed 10 million subscribers within a year of its launch and is reborn as a national messenger. In 2011, the introduction of the emoticon function led to the birth of a new industry. A professional emoticon writer who makes a living by professionally producing and selling emoticons was also born during this time.
Since then, KakaoTalk will strengthen the user chat ecosystem by adding a voice talk function that enables voice chat between users and a video call function FaceTalk.
KakaoTalk, which has solidified the user ecosystem with chatting and emoticons, has expanded into games, shopping, payment, and authentication over the past 10 years, and has been reborn as a comprehensive platform indispensable in daily life.
During the spread of COVID-19, social responsibility has also been strengthened by performing public platform functions such as providing public mask information, QR check-in, and reserving residual vaccines.
◆Securing new growth engines in the global metaverse
KakaoTalk, which turns 12 this year, seeks new growth engines in the metaverse beyond domestic, global, and mobile.
It is the will to wrap up the introduction and get to the main topic by expanding the business area to 99% of people-to-people connections rather than staying with only 1% of acquaintances.
To this end, Kakao is discussing creating a metaverse based on text, which is its strength. Internally, two TFs have been established: the V Task Force and the O TF.
V TF is defined as role-playing chat, where text, not avatars, is key. O TF is a metaverse service based on Kakaos open chat. If KakaoTalk is acquaintance-based communication, open chatting is interest-based communication, so it is easy to advance into the global market.
Kakao CEO-nominated Nam Goong-hoon said that less than 5% of the businesses that came out through connection were realized through digital connection, and expected that the company would be able to grow without difficulty in the future.
