"Carrot, Carrot" Hits Big in Canada Too... The Secret That Captured a Neighborhood 100 Times Bigger Than Korea's

Ranked 2nd in App Store Social Networking Category, Surpassing Global Apps
Localization Strategy Proves Effective, Exceeding 2 Million Cumulative Subscribers

Karrot, the global service of Korea's leading local community platform Danggeun, is gaining great popularity in Canada. It is outperforming global social networking services (SNS) and continues to grow its user base, lighting up prospects for targeting the North American market, including the United States. The success is attributed to a thorough localization strategy implemented in Canada, where the concept of "my neighborhood" is entirely different due to the country's area being 100 times larger than Korea.

According to Danggeun on the 18th, Karrot ranked 2nd in the Social Networking category on the Canadian Apple App Store and 4th in the Social category on the Google Play Store as of the 17th (local time). This ranking surpasses global SNS platforms such as Facebook. Karrot also outperformed local representative C2C (consumer-to-consumer) services like Kijiji.

Carrot Canada Service Screen

This success is also reflected in the number of subscribers. After surpassing 1 million subscribers in Canada in May last year, Karrot secured 2 million subscribers within eight months. Considering it took about three years to reach 1 million subscribers after establishing a corporation in Canada in 2021, the recent growth rate is steep. Karrot, which started services in major hub cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton, has now expanded its service coverage across Canada, excluding the French-speaking Quebec region.

Danggeun attributes Karrot's successful settlement in Canada to its thorough localization strategy. Karrot resembles the early version of Danggeun in Korea. It focuses on the concept of "neighborhood" and provides face-to-face secondhand trading functions based on location information system verification. However, customized localization strategies considering the country's culture and environment are embedded throughout the service. For example, while the transaction distance range in Korea is from a minimum of 1 km to a maximum of 10 km, in North America, transactions can occur within a range from a minimum of 2 km to a maximum of 50 km. This is because residential areas in North America are relatively widely distributed, and the radius perceived as a neighborhood tends to emphasize travel time rather than absolute distance.

Additionally, in the North American market, Karrot applies a "Karrot Score" out of 1000 points instead of Korea's "Manner Temperature." Unlike Korean users who naturally associate the number 36.5 with body temperature, North American users do not intuitively make this connection. Technologies that maximize user convenience are continuously being applied. Recently, Karrot Canada introduced an ‘AI Posting’ feature, where artificial intelligence (AI) automatically analyzes images uploaded by users to create secondhand trading posts. This aims to enable faster and easier post registration.

This localization strategy has been led on-site since 2022 by Kim Yong-hyun, co-founder of Danggeun. Kim set a goal this year to achieve 1 million monthly active users (MAU) in Canada. The next target is the United States. The plan is to expand Karrot's service area to 50 cities across North America within the next five years. Kim said, "I want to make Danggeun a successful case of a K-startup's global expansion, like Korean dramas or K-pop," adding, "Since we are currently achieving meaningful results first in Canada, we plan to continue active investments to expand our influence throughout North America."