Kakao Talk Plans to Grow Beyond Mobile Chat App, Unveils Online Music and Electronic Book Shop

South Korea's popular mobile chat app, Kakao Talk plans to expand beyond its initial scope of being a messaging service, by launching its own music shop and electronic book store online next year, dubbed by the name of ‘Kakao Page’. The product will be made available only in South Korean market initially which has half of Kakao Talk’s users. 

According to CEO Sirgoo Lee, Kakao Page will cater to artists, writers, musicians etc. by providing them with publishing tools for selling and marketing their products to the users who number to around 66 million. 

The company, which made huge success through its mobile messaging service launched in 2010, has also explored venues like online gaming, advertising and other methods of e-commerce. 20 percent cut from the sales of Kakao Page will be taken by the company while 30 percent is to be given to application store operators such as Google, Apple etc. and the rest will go to the content creator. 

Kakao’s presence in the foreign markets has been increasing with the company partnering with major players in other markets. For instance, Kakao Japan sold 50 per cent of its stake to Yahoo! Japan to gain a major foothold in the country against its competitor, NHN Japan who’s Line Messenger has been gaining popularity immensely. 

The company wants to expand to the U.S. markets too, by hoping to partner with Google and Facebook, so as to reach the Smartphone users there. Partnering with game publishers or mobile carriers are other options in front of Kakao Talk for its expansion in the U.S.