South Korean leading search company ‘Naver’ said its Q4 profit rose 5 percent from a year earlier. Net profit came to 141.5 billion won (US$118 million) in that period, compared with the 129.6 billion won a year earlier. Advertisement sales from its mobile search engine platform have been the main revenue streamline for its quarterly performance, accounting for 42 percent of the total advertisement sales. While sales from domestic advertisements moved up 15.2 percent, that…

메신저 라인의 자회사 라인뮤직이 어제 11일, 일본에서 정액제 스트리밍 음악 서비스 애플리케이션 라인뮤직을 출시했다고 밝혔다. 라인뮤직에서는 일본 대중가요는 물론 팝송, K-POP, 애니메이션 등 폭넓은 장르의 음악을 150만 곡 이상을 들을 수 있다. 또한, 상황에 맞는 플레이리스트 및 랭킹 등 다양한 콘텐츠를 제공해 더욱 음악 선택의 폭을 넓혔다. 또한, 라인 친구 및 대화 그룹에 본인이 듣고있던 음악을 공유하고 재생할 수 있는 기능을 추가, 음악 콘텐츠에 메신저만이 가질 수 있는 요소를 더함으로써 콘텐츠를 즐기는…

모든 사용자가 스티커를 만들고 팔 수 있는 플랫폼인 ‘라인 크리에이터스 마켓(Line Creators Market)’을 선보인 라인이 오픈 1주년을 맞이해 첫해 동안의 성과를 발표했다. 지난 1년간 156개국의 39만 명의 사용자가 크리에이터로 등록했으며, 마켓에는 10만 개 이상의 스티커가 선보여졌다. 마켓을 통해 발생한 전체 스티커 매출은 89억4천만 엔(한화 약 811억 원)을 넘었다. 라인은 마켓 내 매출 상위 10개 스티커의 평균 매출이 5천만 엔(한화 약 4억 원)이라고 밝혔다. 라인은 수익의 50%를 창작자에게 배분하고 있다. 라인은 크리에이터스 마켓을 단순한…

4:33 Creative Lab, a top Korean mobile game designer, has joined hands with two of the world’s largest mobile messengers, Tencent and Line Corp. The enormous investment of 1,300 billion won (around $100 million USD) will help the company break into overseas markets and will assist in their plans to go public in 2015. Announcing that it had successfully attracted funds from the mobile messenger operators, the Seoul-based mobile game company said…

“세계에서 화려한 속옷이 제일 잘 팔리는 곳이 중동입니다. 쇼핑몰에 들어가면 한국에서는 본 적도 없는 수 많은 화장품 브랜드가 깔려있어요. 코 성형 1위 국가는 이란이고요. 종교적 억압에 억눌린 자기 표현의 욕구, 중동 시장을 열려면 거길 들여다봐야 합니다.” 중동은 ‘글로벌 진출’을 생각할 때 1차적으로 떠올리게 되는 나라가 아니다. 멀기도 너무 멀고, 국내 스타트업은 아직 미국과 중국, 동남아시아라는 허들도 시원하게 뛰어넘어 본 적이 없다. 이 때문에 석유와 건설 분야를 빼면, 우리에게 중동 시장은 거진 대부분이…

Naver, Korea’s largest search portal and parent company of the popular LINE messeging application, has sustained double-digit growth in the third quarter of this year The primary reason for this is strong revenue growth in overseas markets. The company posted sales of around $700 million for the third quarter of this year, up 22.3% on the same period last year. Operating profit for the quarter is estimated at around $188 million, also…

Until a couple of weeks ago Koreans had never heard of Telegram, the super-secure Berlin-based messaging app that is now causing waves. Telegram is attracting droves of Korean users away, for increased security. In Korea, KakaoTalk is installed on 95% of smartphones, and Kakao messages surpassed SMS messages a few years back. Kakao is known for its ease of use and expressive emoticons. But now Kakao, which has established a near-monopoly in Korea, is facing a serious…

Last December, Aileen Lee from Cowboy Ventures, identified 39 software startups that have reached valuations of over $1 Billion, and grouped them under the moniker of The Unicorn Club, in her landmark TechCrunch post. Since then, software startups with valuations of over $1 Billion are being commonly called “Unicorns” in Silicon Valley and worldwide. On the conclusion of a second very successful beGLOBAL 2014, where ten Korean startups featured in Silicon Valley, we…

After a period of rampant speculations it has been reported that Line Corp.,which now boasts almost half a billion users, has filed confidentially for an initial offering in the U.S. It is expected that the company will seek a dual-listing in New York and Tokyo. This, according to a report our on Bloomberg. While the details have not been released publicly by Line, it is believed that Morgan Stanley (MS) is managing the listing…

Kakao Corp, this week has announced an agreement to buy Korea’s second largest domestic Internet-portal operator Daum Communications in an all-stock deal. It is hoped that the deal will boost the merged entity’s presence in on both Web and mobile services. The deal comes at a time when tech analysts are heralding the end of messaging 2.0, as most independent messaging services which have seen enormous growth recently will now have merged or been…

Investing in Korean startups can be a tough job for Venture Capitalists. Despite amazing growth over the last two to three in the venture ecosystem, we will have to wait for a further five years or more to see the fruits of this second push for a creative economy in Korea over the last ten years. As we know, VCs base their earning potential on few successful investments that can generate enormous…

Last week Cookie Run, one of the most popular mobile games in Korea, celebrated its one year anniversary after a year that has been huge the game and the developer team behind it. The game has seen four consecutive quarters of outstanding revenue and two months ago released on LINE. Since this global release, Cookie Run had over 10 million downloads in Thailand alone, and the game continues to dominate in Asia…

There are two wars tearing apart Korea at the moment. One involves flying missiles and deadly danger, and the other is a tech battle between cute characters. While the south has returned fire today against the North for firing missiles into disputed ocean off the coast of the peninsula, Line and KakaoTalk are battling against each other in a cold war that is developing between the two mobile messaging apps.   LINE…

Between 1997 and 2001, 3 web portal giants were born in Korea in a mini .com boom that mirrored similar in the west. Daum, Naver and Nate utilized the incredible IT infrastructure that had been built through a massive, strategic cash injection from the Korean government that aimed (and succeeded) in powering Korea to the status of one of the most progressive technology hubs in the world. This legacy still prevails and…

A Google spokesperson has reached out to TechInAsia who also posted this news, and pointed out that “it hasn’t done or offered any of the things described in this post.” References  were initially sourced from ZDnet Korea (http://www.zdnet.co.kr/news/news_view.asp?artice_id=20140219145110). They have since taken down the articles used as reference for this article. We apologize for the inaccuracy of this post. Korea has long been a brand-obsessed shopping nation. Now Google aims to assist up-and-coming app…

Kakao Corp., developers of Korea’s favorite messaging service and social platform, Kakao Talk, will be listing its stock publicly next May. This follows the recent news that SundayToz also successfully listed its stock in August 2013, and demonstrates further growth in the domestic tech industry, that has been attracting much attention in the international press attention recently. What’s more interesting though is the potential opportunity that Facebook has presented following today’s news that…

Reuters: Asian chat services KakaoTalk, LINE and WeChat threaten to overturn the mobile order of things, usurping the role of Google Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and telecoms carriers as gatekeeper to the consumer. Where these internet and telecoms giants once controlled the lucrative choke points of the industry, social messaging services are fast emerging as an alternative distribution channel for adverts, apps, and goods and services. For example, Tencent Holdings’ WeChat allows its more than…

라인(Line, 모바일 메시징 앱)이 어제 4일 스페인 및 중남미 최대 글로벌 이동통신회사 텔레포니카와 파트너십을 체결하였다. 텔레포니카는 작년 하반기부터 안드로이드 OS와 iOS를 제외한 모바일 OS를 도입하기 위해 삼성의 타이젠(TIZEN) OS와 모질라재단의 파이어폭스(Firefox) OS 도입을 고려하였으나 최종적으로 삼성 대신 파이어폭스 OS를 택했다. 그리고 라인(Line)과의 이번 제휴를 통해 파이어폭스 OS 기반의 모바일 기기에 라인(Line)을 기본 응용프로그램으로 탑재하기로 결정했다. 현재 파이어폭스 OS 마켓플레이스를 통해 라인 앱을 이용할 수 있으며, 올해 1분기 이내에 라인이 기본 탑재된 스마트폰이 출시될…

Having achieved 18M downloads and the number 1 spot in 20 countries back in 2009 with Oven Break, the company’s first release, Korean game developer Devsisters has just released their global follow-up, Cookie Run, on the Line games platform. Despite early success with Oven Break, they struggled to maintain momentum and effectively withdrew from the global market, choosing to focus on their home turf in Korea. This was due struggles in maintaining…

모바일 메신저 시장은 성장을 거듭하고 있다. 유저수와 그 증가율, 여러 메신저가 공존하며 빠르게 성장하고 밀려나는 모습은 마치 구글이 등장하기 전의 검색 시장 혹은 아이폰이 등장하기 전의 스마트폰 시장과 흡사하다. 전 세계 모바일 메신저 시장을 놓고 왓츠앱(WhatsApp), 위챗(WeChat), 카카오톡(KakaoTalk), 스냅챗(SnapChat) 등이 치열하게 경쟁하고 있는 가운데 네이버 일본 지사에서 2011년 론칭하여 현재 230 여국에서 사용되며 62개국에서 무료 앱 랭킹 1위에 올라있는, 글로벌 모바일 메신저로 도약중인 라인(LINE)을 분석해보았다. 라인(LINE) 의 기본적인 통산 기록 2014년 1월…