SEOUL, Oct. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — In the midst of the rapid growth of the South Korean content industry, the competition between Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp., the two major tech companies, is heating up to secure story content like webtoons and web novels. Naver Webtoon, the webcomic arm of the nation’s top portal operator, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Small businesses are stepping up against internet giant Kakao Corp.’s offensive business expansion that is making life difficult for smaller industry players. The controversy flared up when Kakao’s mobility unit Kakao Mobility Corp., after announcing its plans to coexist with small businesses this month, recently acquired two additional chauffeur [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean internet giant Kakao Corp. said Tuesday it has decided to form a 300 billion won (US$256.2 million) fund for small merchants and scrap some of its services that compete against them, in a move to appease growing scrutiny from regulators and politicians over its rapidly expanding online [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s antitrust regulator said Friday it will closely look into unfair business activity by online platform giants here amid their increased market dominance, apparently targeting Naver Corp. and Kakao Corp. Concerns have mounted that powerful online platform operators have abused their dominant market status and engaged in unfair [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — Shares in South Korean tech giants Kakao Corp. and Naver Corp. plummeted Wednesday amid growing concerns that new regulations may be introduced to curb their dominance in the market. A day earlier, ruling Democratic Party lawmakers voiced concerns over the market dominance of tech giant Kakao and its rapid [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Corp., South Korea’s top online messenger operator, said Friday its second-quarter net income more than doubled from a year earlier on the back of growth of its broader platform and content businesses. Net profit for the April-June period stood at 315.9 billion won (US$276.2 million) on a consolidated [...]
SEOUL, July 23 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Corp., which operates South Korea’s most popular mobile messenger Kakao Talk, is diversifying in a wide variety of industries. Recently, the tech giant has turned to chauffeur services, flower deliveries and even hair salons, driven largely by consumer demand. Kakao’s strategy is to enter the taxi and banking [...]
SEOUL, July 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Enterprise Corp., an artificial intelligence (AI) unit of the country’s largest mobile messenger operator, Kakao Corp., said Tuesday that it has added a new feature to the Kakao Smart Speaker that allows users to customize voice triggers. Previously, the speaker has responded only to “Hey, Kakao.” Now, users [...]
SEOUL, June 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Corp., which operates South Korea’s most popular mobile messenger Kakao Talk, emerged as the country’s fifth-largest conglomerate in terms of market cap on the back of the recent gains from the main bourse, data showed Sunday. The combined market cap of Kakao and its affiliates came to 73.9 [...]
SEOUL, June 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Corp. has an insatiable appetite for platform businesses, spanning messenger, e-commerce, mobility, content and finance, and now it has earned another title: South Korea’s third-most valuable company. The nation’s dominant mobile messenger operator rapidly expanded its presence in the nation’s tech sector with a wide range of platform [...]