We knew the Kakao community was growing at a rapid pace, and we’ve been getting a taste of just how fast it’s been growing over the past several months. In fact, earlier this month, the mobile messaging platform reached 100 million total users, having grown by over 10 million users since the beginning of May. The messaging platform originally launched in 2010.
Now another indication that the platform is growing has been announced as the Kakao Game platform has reached the 30 million user mark and 400 million downloads milestone nearly a year after its birth. Games were added to the service on July 30 of last year.
10 titles from seven developers were part of the initial batch of offerings, but that number has since grown to 180 titles from 99 developers. In addition sales increased by 194 percent — jumping from 118 billion Korean won in the second half of 2012 to 348 billion won in the first half of 2013.
“We believe that the Kakao game platform is the most ideal mobile game platform,” said Toby Ban, director of Kakao Games Business Department, “brought forth by the synergy of the social network power generated by KakaoTalk and KakaoStory, together with the creative contents of game developers. The added entertainment aspect of being able to play games with actual friends appealed to even those who didn’t play mobile games in the past.”
It’s no secret that mobile messaging apps such as KakaoTalk have started to overtake text messaging in popularity, and with gaming added alongside its stickers and additional features, we could see apps like Kakao become more commonplace as time goes on, and continue pushing a standard in the industry that mobile carriers will have no choice but to adapt to.