Naver Whale's Dream of No.1... Will the 'User First' Strategy Work?

"Stopping Chrome's Solo Run, Becoming No.1 Within 3 Years"
Strategy Tailored to User Preferences
Focusing Capabilities on Educational Platforms Too

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] Can the dominance of Chrome be stopped? The native browser ‘Naver Whale,’ which has declared its goal to become the number one domestic browser within three years, has unveiled the ‘User First’ card. The ambition is to take the lead in the market by significantly enhancing personalized features that respond swiftly to changes in user preferences.

◆The key is ‘User First’=According to market research firm StatCounter on the 17th, Whale’s domestic browser market share last month was 7.73%, ranking fourth after Chrome (52.28%), Samsung Internet (13.7%), and Safari (13.07%). Although still in single digits, it is considered a significant growth compared to January 2019, when it had a 0.62% share.

Naver Whale’s goal is even bigger. It aims to become the number one domestic browser within three years, surpassing global operators who dominate the operating system (OS) ecosystem.

Whale is finding the key to growth in a user-first approach. The strategy is to observe the internet environment and user preferences and actively reflect user feedback to enhance the browser. It is a bold move to compete solely on usability without its own device or operating system (OS).

Currently, Whale allows anyone to propose improvement ideas or new features through a channel called ‘Whale Lab,’ and each suggestion is carefully reviewed. There are 45,234 users participating as ‘researchers’ who submit ideas in the lab. Kim Hyo, Naver Whale’s lead manager, explained, “Our first policy is to respond to every comment. About 70,000 posts have been submitted, and we check and reply to all of them.”

Through this, Whale has identified the internet usage patterns of ‘smartphone natives’ (a generation fluent in smartphone use). Whale explains that these users, while using PCs, expect to carry over the usability of smartphones.

Accordingly, Whale has established a direction to connect mobile experiences to PCs and redefine PC usability. The newly launched features last month, ‘Sidebar Standalone Mode’ and ‘Green Drop,’ are results of this direction. Sidebar Standalone Mode allows users to run various web apps without opening separate windows, such as running Papago while working on a Hangul document. Green Drop enables simple sharing of links and files from mobile to the PC Whale browser regardless of the OS.

◆User First in the Education Platform as well=This user-first strategy is also applied to the education market, where Whale has recently been accelerating its efforts.

Whale is expanding the usability of the browser-based edutech platform ‘Whale Space for Education’ through memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with various metropolitan and provincial offices of education. Whale Space provides various web-based services on the Whale browser, allowing users to conveniently access all services with a single Whale account.

At the time of partnership, Whale promised to improve services by reflecting the voices of teachers and students from the education field. Based on field feedback, Whale has improved the Whale On feature embedded in Whale Space in 10 areas just this month.

Whale expects these efforts to familiarize users with Whale and instill a positive image. Based on this solid user base, the ambition is to seize the number one spot domestically.

Lead manager Kim said, “It is a very challenging task to overturn the browser market dominated by global operators controlling the OS ecosystem, but Whale is steadily growing with convenient usability even without its own device or OS,” adding, “We will continue to strengthen Whale’s presence.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.