Some of Kim’s biggest competition comes from his old company, which started its own mobile messenger, Line, a year after KakaoTalk began. Once derided by Kakao fans as a copycat, Line has come nowhere near dethroning Kakao in South Korea, but it has become the dominant messaging service in Japan and has made a wider global impact. It reached the 470 million registered-user mark this summer, and Lee’s wealth topped $1 billion this year. (Last year NHN split into NHN Entertainment and Naver Corp., and Line, a Naver unit, filed in July for an initial public offering with a $10 billion valuation.)
KakaoTalk’s ability to spread to other markets is further confined by other mobile-messaging competitors, from WhatsApp to China-based Tencent’s WeChat, all elbowing each other to find the next emerging market. Thus far it hasn’t been successful in finding a new market where it can replicate South Korea’s fanaticism for its products. “Kakao is trying to expand its user base in Southeast Asia, but Line and WeChat are much, much stronger there,” says Woori analyst Chung, who sees the company’s growth opportunities in the addition of more features for current users. “It’s all domestic business [for Kakao].”
Indeed, the company is churning out new products and ideas that will make KakaoTalk even more ubiquitous in the lives of its users. Last year the company launched music and style applications, with the latter featuring deals on clothing that users can take advantage of themselves or send as gifts for friends. Last month the company got into the mobile-payments game with KakaoPay, and an Uber-esque smartphone-linked taxi service may soon be on the way. For the “morning calm billionaire,” the mobile universe is ever expanding.