Emoticon characters of KakaoTalk. (image: Kakao Corp.)
SEOUL, Nov. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Corp., the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, said Monday that about 300,000 sets have been sold and 220 billion emoticons have been sent among users through the messenger service since it launched its emoticon business ten years ago.
KakaoTalk released its first emoticon in Nov. 2011. Over the past ten years, KakaoTalk emoticons, excluding its own characters like Ryan and Apeach, have generated sales revenue of 700 billion won (US$588.8 billion).
Among them, the number of emoticons with cumulative revenue of more than 100 million won totaled 1,392.
Another 92 emoticons generated sales revenue of more than 1 billion won and five emotions generated sales revenue of more than 10 billion won.
According to Kakao, there are about 10,000 emoticon creators selling character illustrations on the platform.
Of emoticon creators, 49.9 percent were in their 20s, followed by those in their 30s at 34.5 percent and those in their 40s at 12.4 percent. The youngest creator was 12 years old, while the oldest creator was 81 years old.
Ashley Song (ashley@koreabizwire.com)
