SEOUL, KOREA - Kakao, the provider of global mobile social platform and mobile messenger KakaoTalk(www.kakao.com), announced that it will be celebrating the one year anniversary of Kakao game platform on the July 30th.
Within the past year, the platform has attracted more than 30 million users and 300 million accumulated subscriptions, fostering a new cultural trend that invited the whole population of Korea to enjoy games on mobile. What began with just ten game titles by seven partners has grown 18 folds to now offer 180 titles by 99 developers (as of the 2nd week of July).
Within the past year, the Kakao game platform has revitalized the entire mobile game industry through a miraculous synergy with prominent local and international game developers. Accumulated sales from all Kakao games combined recorded KRW 348 billion in H1 2013, recording a 194% increase from KRW 118 billion in H2 2012. What’s also worth noting is that six of the top ten grossing titles in Kakao games were developed by small or medium sized game developers. Sales of these six titles take up 58% of the combined sales amount of top ten grossing games.
Just until a year ago, mobile game applications struggled to attract 1 million downloads. Kakao game platform completely reversed this trend, and gave birth to eight games that recorded more than 10 million downloads. More than half of these games that recorded 10 million downloads were games from small or mid sized developers. Two of these games—‘Anipang for Kakao,’ which brought along the so-called ‘Anipang Syndrome,’ and ‘Dragon Flight for Kakao’—even recorded as many as 20 million downloads. By giving birth to multiple mega hit mobile games, Kakao has proven that any game with great content can be successful in the mobile era, regardless of the size of the developer. This aspect has stimulated people’s interest and participation in the mobile game market, and is acting as a catalyst for industry revitalization.
Having established a successful symbiotic business model with game partners where the success of the developers is directly translated to the success of Kakao, the company continues to enjoy healthy growth alongside the success of Kakao games. In addition, the platform is becoming an important benchmarking model for prominent companies around the world by being the first to successfully join games to a social platform. Game developers that have proven the quality of their games through their success on the Kakao game platform are exploring new opportunities in the global market, expanding their user base to the global market.
Toby Ban, Director of Kakao Games Business Department said, “We believe that the Kakao game platform is the most ideal mobile game platform, brought forth by the synergy of the social network power generated by KakaoTalk and KakaoStory, together with the creative contents of game developers,” and added, “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. This eventually led mobile games to grown into a popular culture in Korea.” Lastly, he continued, “We will continue to exert our efforts to build a healthy ecosystem through close cooperation with prominent mobile game developers around the world. As a part of this initiative, Kakao will reinforce our support programs for small and medium sized developers and also strengthen the social function.”
Meanwhile, Kakao plans to further its efforts to provide fun and beneficial mobile communication through KakaoTalk, as it has provided a new channel and culture of communication through Kakao games. In addition, Kakao plans to further strengthen the global competitiveness of its game platform based on the accumulated experience and know-how it has gained from the Korean market.
