Kakao is speeding up its entry into the global market. It seems to be speeding up its company's vision of "Beyond Korea" strategy by starting overseas expansion beyond content and games.
Kakao had previously announced that it would increase its share of overseas sales to 30% by 2024. Attention is focusing on whether Kakao will be able to succeed in expanding its overseas territory beyond Korea.
Kakao Entertainment takes the lead in overseas expansion
Kakao Entertainment (Kakao Entertainment) is an affiliate that is at the forefront of Kakao's overseas expansion. It is developing global business based on webtoons, web novels, media, and music. Kakao Entertainment is currently entering North America, Southeast Asia, China, and Europe through its own webtoon platform "Kakao Webtoon" and platforms of subsidiaries and affiliates.
Kakao Entertainment's biggest weapon is intellectual property (IP). It has invested more than KRW 2 trillion in content production (CP) and IP development since the beginning of its business to target the global market, and currently has the largest source IP in Korea, securing more than 10,000 original IPs. As of the fourth quarter of last year, the number of overseas works reached 3,700.
Based on this, Kakao Entertainment, which has entered overseas markets, has focused on expanding the global market for Korean writers and CPs by actively exporting domestic webtoons. In the case of the North American webtoon platform "Tapas," domestic webtoons account for less than 1% of the total number of works, but they show a clear presence by driving 70% of sales.
Kakao Entertainment plans to continue its growth this year, focusing on North America, the world's largest entertainment market. It aims to achieve No. 1 in North American webtoon sales through "Tapas Entertainment," a merger of North American webtoon platform Tapas and web novel platform Radish. In particular, the company plans to properly target the U.S. web novel market, which is twice the size of the webtoon market, and set the stage for growth.
Recently, it has succeeded in attracting large-scale investment and attached wings for full-fledged global territorial expansion. Last month, Kakao Entertainment attracted about 1.2 trillion won worth of investment from leading overseas sovereign wealth funds such as Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. The financial resources secured through this will be invested intensively in global businesses. In particular, in the story sector, it planned to plan and discover various IPs and introduce them to global expansion areas such as North America, Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia.
Kakao Piccoma, a Japanese subsidiary of Kakao, is also showing a solid presence in the global market. Piccoma, which has increased its competitiveness by serving webtoons in the Japanese digital cartoon market, attracted users by introducing new operating methods and business models such as user environment and experience (UI·UX) tailored to the mobile environment and '0 yen if you wait'. From July 2020 to the present, it has maintained the No. 1 sales of comic apps in the world, and as of September last year, it ranked No. 1 in consumer spending in all apps in Japan, including games. France, which entered the market in March last year, is increasing its competitiveness by serving webtoons from Korea, Japan, and China, including Manga, a Japanese cartoon.
Expanding territory with new games
Kakao Games is another global growth pillar of Kakao. Since its launch in late March last year in Taiwan and other Chinese regions, Odin: Valhalla Rising, which was released in 2021, has become popular, ranking first in Google Play and Apple App Store and first in Apple App Store sales. Store sales. Through Odin's global success, Kakao Games also succeeded in achieving annual sales of 1 trillion won last year. Kakao Games is planning to release Odin in Japan, North America, and Europe this year.
The new movie "Ever Soul," which was released last month, is considered the next one to continue Odin's success. This game is a mobile collective role-playing game (RPG) developed by Nine Arc and serviced by Kakao Games. EVERSOUL was released worldwide on the 5th of last month through Google Play and Apple's App Store except for some countries such as Japan, and surpassed 1.7 million global downloads as of the 1st.
Kakao Games plans to introduce Eversoul in the Japanese market, the home of the subculture genre, in the third quarter to accelerate its efforts to target the global market. Although it is only released in Korean dubbing in other countries, including Korea, the Japanese service has worked so hard that it performs full dubbing separately with local Japanese voice actors.
The topic of this year's New Year's address was also "Beyond Korea." "Based on our accumulated service experience, 2023 aims to become 'Beyond Korea' that can entertain 'more customers'," said Cho Gye-hyun, CEO of Kakao Games. "We will strengthen our fundamentals by releasing various new works and continuing to expand our region." In the mid- to long-term, we plan to continue to strengthen external growth by expanding global pipelines at the same time as succeeding our own IP."
Mobility Starts to Target Southeast Asia
Recently, Kakao Mobility has also started to enter overseas markets. Kakao Mobility signed a business agreement with a local manufacturing and mobility company in Laos at the end of last month and decided to establish and launch a platform exclusively for the region within this year. This is the first time Kakao Mobility has established a local service platform.
Kakao Mobility plans to use Laos as an outpost for global mobility competition and expand its scope throughout Southeast Asia in the future. It is an aspiration to prove its competitiveness in Mekong countries (Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam) and Laos, which borders China, and to compete directly with global mobility such as Gozek and Grab.
Kakao Mobility is currently operating "Mobility Roaming Service," a service that allows users to call overseas local means of transportation through the Kakao T app in a total of 32 countries, including Europe, Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In the case of entering Laos, it is evaluated that it is one step closer to entering overseas markets by expanding its user base not only to Koreans but also to locals.
Earlier in March last year, Kakao set key keywords for the next 10 years as "Beyond Korea" and "Beyond Mobile" and reorganized its global strategy. Founder Kim Bum-soo, head of the Future Initiative Center, is also helping to expand globally after resigning as chairman of the board. The Future Initiative Center, led by him, is an organization that prepares for the next 10 years of the Kakao community, and oversees the global market targeting of all Kakao affiliates and discovering future food.
Kim Bum-soo, head of the Future Initiative Center, stepped down as chairman of the board in March last year, stressing that "Beyond Korea" is Kakao's own mission to explore a new land called overseas markets beyond the starting point of Korea and is a strong demand of Korean society.
Kakao said it will increase its share of overseas sales to 30% by 2024 to realize Beyond Korea. Kakao's overseas sales share, which was 10% in 2021, increased to about 21% (about 1.1065 trillion won) of total sales as of the third quarter of last year.
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