SEOUL, Jun. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Users of Naver Papago, the South Korean online portal operator’s artificial intelligence-powered translation service, have steadily increased, topping 20 million last month on overseas demand, industry sources said Monday. The number of Papago’s monthly active users (MAUs), both for app and web versions, reached 20.74 million in May, up [...]
SEOUL, Jun. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Kakao Mobility Corp. said Tuesday it has released a new tax-hailing app for foreigners in South Korea. The new app, named k.ride, can be downloaded from the app stores in 14 countries, including the United States, Japan, China and Singapore, first for use in South Korea in connection to [...]
SEOUL, June 1 (Korea Bizwire) –The video-sharing app YouTube accounts for a staggering one-third of the time South Koreans spend on their smartphones, cementing Google’s powerful presence in the country’s mobile market through its singular hit platform. According to app analytics firm Wiseapp, South Korean smartphone users spent 33.6% of their total device usage, or [...]
SEOUL, May 31 (Korea Bizwire) – Kakao Entertainment announced on May 30 that its web novel and webtoon platform, KakaoPage, has been the highest-grossing book app in South Korea for the past two years, citing data from the market research platform Sensor Tower. According to Sensor Tower, from May 11, 2022, to May 10, 2024, KakaoPage [...]
SEOUL, May 30 (Korea Bizwire) – Allegations that a famous dog trainer and his wife monitored messages exchanged between employees on a workplace collaboration app called Naver Works have sparked concerns over potential privacy violations involving such programs, which often include messaging capabilities. According to IT industry insiders, Susan Elder, the wife of Kang Hyung-wook, who [...]
SEOUL, May 24 (Korea Bizwire) – In a striking shift in South Korea’s social media landscape, Instagram has emerged as the dominant platform, surpassing the once-formidable giants Naver and Kakao, according to a recent report by the Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI). The report, titled “Social Media Usage by Generation,” revealed that nearly half (48.6%) [...]
SEOUL, May 23 (Korea Bizwire) – The privacy watchdog fined Kakao Corp., the operator of South Korea’s dominant mobile messenger, 15.1 billion won (US$11 million) Thursday for the leak of about 65,000 users’ personal data, the highest penalty ever imposed on a domestic firm. The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) approved the fine during its [...]
SEOUL, May 17 (Korea Bizwire) — A senior foreign ministry official called for Japan on Friday to help ensure that Naver Corp. can make its own decision about whether to sell down its stake in the operator of the Line messaging app without “external pressure.” Second Vice Foreign Minister Kang In-sun made the call during [...]
SEOUL, May 14 (Korea Bizwire) — Photo-sharing app Instagram overtook Naver, the nation’s leading internet portal, as the third most popular mobile app in South Korea in terms of usage time last month, industry data showed Tuesday. South Koreans spent a combined 20.9 billion minutes on Instagram in April, according to the data by mobile [...]
SEOUL, May 14 (Korea Bizwire) – As Naver weighs selling its stake in LINE Yahoo to SoftBank, employees at LINE’s Korean subsidiaries are grappling with uncertainty about their future. Just six months after the merger of LINE and Yahoo Japan, Naver’s consideration of divesting its LINE Yahoo shares has sparked concerns about job security among workers. [...]