Papago, Used by Over 10 Million People Monthly... Increasing Global Recognition

Naver Cloud announced on the 21st that the global monthly active users (MAU) of its AI translation service application, Papago, have surpassed 10 million. This represents an approximately 30% increase compared to last year.

Papago has maintained its position as the number one translation app in South Korea for six consecutive years. Its popularity overseas is also steadily rising. The number of overseas users has increased by 1.5 times compared to last year, with more than 3 million users abroad using Papago every month. It shows high usage in Japan, Southeast Asia including Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines, as well as North America.

The continuous growth of Papago is largely due to consistent AI technology research and quality improvements that have enhanced usability. Based on its proprietary neural machine translation (NMT) technology, it currently supports translation in a total of 15 languages. It is utilized across various services such as the Naver app, Whale browser, and LINE.

Papago is strengthening its competitiveness not only through machine translation technology but also by advancing various foundational technologies. In 2020, it implemented ‘HTS,’ which analyzes sentence structures within images and reflects context in translations. In 2021, it developed ‘inpainting’ technology that removes text from original images to create natural background images. These technologies have been applied to Papago’s image translation service, providing users with more accurate and readable translation results. Since launch, the ‘Instant Translation’ and ‘AR Real-time Translation’ features in image translation have seen usage increase by about five times.

Papago has continuously launched new services. Notably, in 2021, it introduced ‘Papago Edu,’ which supports users in conveniently learning languages via mobile devices. By photographing a passage they want to study with the ‘Learning Camera,’ users can view translations along with important vocabulary at a glance. Starting with English, support for languages such as Japanese and Chinese is expanding. In February of this year, the ‘Edu Vocabulary Book’ was launched, allowing users to collect words they want to study for more efficient learning. As of June, 1.1 million users are learning with Papago Edu, receiving positive responses especially from people in their teens and twenties.

Shin Jung-hwi, director of Naver Cloud leading Papago, said, “As a result of actively reflecting the demand for accurate and highly usable translation services, Papago seems to have established itself as a beloved national translation service among many users.” He added, “Going forward, Papago will continue technological research and enhance translation performance and service convenience to strengthen its global competitiveness.”