Kakao woos overseas markets with manga comics

TALK AWAY: Models posing with devices running the KakaoTalk app at the official launch event.

TOKYO: Asia’s messaging apps have a history of becoming huge in their home market before struggling to gain traction overseas. South Korea’s Kakao Corp is counting on the Japanese love of manga comics to break that trend.

Amassing 43 million users at home has driven Kakao’s market value to 8.2 trillion won (US$7.3bil) but it’s little known outside South Korea, a factor that’s contributed to a 31% share price slump from a peak in August 2014. Earlier efforts to add customers in South-East Asia and Japan have foundered as it ran head-first into dominant apps like WeChat and Line.