Samsung, among the communication service providers SKT and KT, are rethinking their messaging services to pull users from popular messaging apps.
Samsung is eyeballing the success of popular messaging services like Korea’s KakaoTalk to design a platform of its own. Samsung has already made a move to make a presence in the lucrative market with its Messages app, native to Galaxy Note 9, S8 and beyond smartphones.
At the same time Korean telecommunication companies are trying to breakout of the defunct “text messaging” rut to reclaim a loss of users this month.
“Although we are taking steps to take away the hegemony of KakaoTalk, we are not at the stage to call us a rival of KakaoTalk.”
Representative for a Korean mobile network provider
A substantial shift of phone carrier texting to third party messaging apps was due in large part to the introduction of the faster and cheaper 4G LTE technology. Messaging apps adopted popular features such as unique emojis, group chatting and multi file sharing on top of traditional text messaging.
Since then, messaging services like Kakao succeeded in raking in profits from varied, but conveniently interlinked services (Kakao Taxi, KakaoBus, KakaoPay, KakaoHairshop, and many more). The in application purchase opportunities and the value of reselling/using Big Data has made a clear case for companies like Samsung to carve out their own market share.
