[Conference Call] Kakao: "User Time Spent Rebounds After KakaoTalk Revamp"

Average Daily Time Spent Rises from 24 Minutes to Nearly 26 Minutes After Revamp

Jeong Suna, CEO of Kakao, stated during the third-quarter earnings conference call on the 7th that "following the KakaoTalk revamp, one of our key performance indicators (KPIs), user time spent, has rebounded."

CEO Jeong explained, "Due to the nature of messenger services, increasing user time spent is a very challenging task," adding, "Even during the unique situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the average daily time spent per KakaoTalk user increased by only about 10 seconds."

However, she noted that this time, a significant change has occurred. Despite some backlash from users after the Friends tab was revamped, the actual time spent has increased. CEO Jeong said, "Compared to before the revamp, the average daily time spent has risen from the 24-minute range to nearly 26 minutes," and evaluated, "It is meaningful that the previously declining and stabilizing time spent has started to rebound for the first time."

She also revealed, "In the 'Friends tab' and 'Now tab,' which are focused on exploring and discovering content, time spent increased by more than 10% compared to the third-quarter average." CEO Jeong added, "As platform traffic, which had been concentrated in chat rooms, has expanded to other tabs, we view the overall improvement in the quality of KakaoTalk's traffic as a positive development."