In 2024, the most used search engine in South Korea was Naver, with a share of around ** percent of monthly active users. Naver is a South Korean online platform and search engine which is operated by Naver Corporation. Despite the domestic website being popular among users, Google took first spot as the market leader in the South Korean search engine market. Online search behavior Naver was still the first place to go for South Koreans looking up information on the web.The most successful search engine visit category in South Korea was related to studying, averaging over ********** of visits. At the same time, search engine results of the IT category had the highest bounce rate. Online education, on the other hand, had a rather low bounce rate, indicating that users were more satisfied with the shown search results. Internet usage in South Korea The significant majority of South Koreans used the internet, maintaining an internet usage rate of well over ** percent for years. Reasons for using the internet in South Korea are countless, as it has seeped into every facet of life. Nevertheless, the most commonly named reasons for going online were communication purposes and looking for information. Using the internet for multiple reasons, South Koreans spend on average more than ** hours per week online.

As of June 2024, the number of users on the online marketplace Naver Shopping amounted to around **** million. User numbers of the platform have dropped off again after the peak of ** million users in January 2024, but not as much as in September 2023.

As of March 2020, around **** percent of active users of the Naver TV Android app in South Korea were men in their forties. During that time, the application had around *** million active users in South Korea.

In December 2024, the music streaming app Naver VIBE had around ******* monthly active users (MAU) on Android in South Korea. The app has seen a steady monthly decline in active users over the past year, down from ******* in January.

According to a survey conducted in the second and third quarter of 2024, ** percent of South Koreans reported to use KakaoTalk. KakaoTalk is a messaging app developed in South Korea and owned by Kakao Corporation. Kakao TalkKakaoTalk, often referred to as KaTalk, is a free mobile messenger for smartphones. Since its launch in 2010, it has grown to have around **** million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of 2024. While the application is free to use, the company sells so-called emoticons in their app-shop and operates a gift system. Emoticons are stickers, most often depicting popular characters, that the users can send to their contacts in the chatrooms. Kakao’s own characters, “Kakao Friends” became fashionable enough to be sold in KakaoTalk merchandise stores all over the country. As of 2017, it was reported that the company was selling around 5,500 sticker packs in their mobile store. Social media usageSouth Korea has the one of the fastest internet worldwide as well as an internet penetration rate of over ** percent. Naturally, the majority of citizens use social media on a daily basis. While older generations prefer domestic platforms, like Naver BAND, international platforms, like Facebook or Instagram, were more popular among younger social media users. Nevertheless, YouTube is widely popular among South Koreans of all ages. In a survey among 19 to 59-year-old consumers, only *** percent of respondents stated that they have never heard of the streaming platform. According to Reuters, around ** percent of respondents aged 55 years or older used YouTube as a news source.

As of July 2024, the number of monthly active users (MAU) of Samsung Pay recorded ***** million. This was followed by KakaoPay at about **** million. Big fintech companies like Naver Financial and KakaoPay have been steadily increasing their market share in the South Korean mobile payment market over the past few years.

In the third quarter of 2020, the Japanese messaging app company LINE Corporation generated a revenue of close to ** billion Japanese yen. This constituted an increase of **** percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

A steady growth path

LINE Corporation was initially founded under the name Hangame Japan in 2000 and renamed to NHN Japan in 2003. The messenger app LINE, for which the company is widely known today, was first introduced in 2011 as a response to the Great East Japan Earthquake. As the earthquake had triggered a tsunami that destroyed phone lines in many places, an alternative way of communicating became necessary, and the messenger app was quickly embraced by Japanese consumers. Following the overwhelming success of LINE, the company changed its name again and has operated as LINE Corporation since **********. Both the quarterly revenue of the company and the number of monthly active users in Japan showed a clear growth trajectory in the years that followed. The company gradually expanded its business operations by introducing new services, such as LINE Manga in 2013, LINE Pay in 2014, and LINE Music in 2015. In addition, LINE Corporation also ventured into several foreign markets. Aside from Japan, the app today has a large user base in Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.

Merger with Z Holdings

LINE Corporation, which had operated as a subsidiary of Naver Corporation for many years, merged with Yahoo Japan operator and SoftBank Corp. subsidiary Z Holdings Corporation in **********. As a result of this merger, both Naver Corporation and SoftBank Corp. each hold ** percent in a newly established company called A Holdings Corporation, which in turn is a majority shareholder of Z Holdings Corporation. Upon the completion of the business integration, which is supposed to create synergies and improve competitiveness, it was announced that the Z Holdings Group would not only continue to focus on the existing core businesses of Z Holdings and LINE, but would in addition focus on four new business areas. These comprise the categories commerce, “local vertical”, which is supposed to support businesses’ digital transformation through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), FinTech, and public services.