Oriental Interference
The partial block of the Line and Kakao Talk mobile messengers in China since July 1 of last year is showing signs of extension, while Chinese game studios are taking advantage of the local regulation that forces Korean game developers wishing to do business in China to pass through their studios.
According to industry sources, the Chinese government is continuing to block access to global Internet services. Before the measure, Naver Line was the second-most-downloaded Android application in China earlier last year. However, the number of Line and Kakao Talk users in China has dropped from more than 15 million to less than 10 million.
The situation has affected the efforts of Naver and Daum Kakao to penetrate the Chinese fintech market, too. Naver recently excluded China from the group of countries where it launched its payment service Line Pay. Daum Kakao took similar action in releasing the Kakao Pay service.
China has promoted the growth of its Internet industry by boycotting global services such as Facebook, Twitter, Google Search, YouTube, and Google Play. Non-Chinese messengers like Didi, Talk Box, and Vower are blocked there, too. Experts point out that measures should be taken without delay in order to tackle the protectionism.