People Quickly Seeking Alternatives... Kakao Recovery Progress Exceeds 80%

Sharp Increase in New Installations of Kakao Alternative Apps Over the Weekend
Rising Popularity of Line, Telegram, Tmap, and Others

KakaoTalk error message
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Seung-jin] Following a data center fire last weekend that caused prolonged outages in Kakao's related services, Kakao users are rapidly seeking alternative services. Although Kakao is making every effort to restore its services, competing applications such as Line and T map are quickly expanding their user base.

According to the big data analysis platform Mobile Index on the 19th, downloads of competing apps to Kakao's major apps like KakaoTalk, KakaoT, and KakaoMap surged over the past weekend.

As of 11 a.m. on the 17th, the daily new installations of the messenger app Line reached 235,000, marking an all-time high. This represents a 4,255% increase compared to the previous day. Telegram also saw an increase of 33,000 new installations during the same period, a 637% rise from the day before.

This is analyzed as 'digital refugees' quickly seeking substitutes after KakaoTalk, the largest domestic messenger app with 43.46 million users, went down. In the case of Line, it is reported that more than 850,000 new users joined within two days after the fire occurred.

Daily New Installations of Kakao Alternative Apps (Photo by Mobile Index)

New installations of T map and Wooty also significantly increased as substitutes for KakaoT, which provides taxi and designated driver services. T map saw an increase of 64,000 new installations, and Wooty increased by 52,000. These represent increases of 660% and 1,516% respectively compared to the previous day. Additionally, new installations of Naver Map surged by 610% compared to the previous day, replacing KakaoMap.

Although Kakao quickly began restoring its services, it seems difficult to win back users who have already turned away. On the 18th, based on Android, the top 1 to 5 popular app rankings were all occupied by alternative apps to Kakao's major apps. Line ranked first, followed by T map, Naver Map, Wooty, and Telegram.

Meanwhile, Kakao has completed recovery of 11 services among its entire portfolio. These include KakaoBank, KakaoMap, KakaoT, KakaoNavi, KakaoPage, KakaoWebtoon, Melon, and KakaoGames. Most of KakaoTalk's services have been restored, but the advertising message functions of Talk Drawer and Talk Channel, as well as some search functions in Shopping, are still under recovery.

Search functions for Daum's portal services such as Cafe, KakaoStory, Brunch, and Tistory are still undergoing restoration work.

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