Shift in Platform Dynamics
The number of YouTube users is rapidly closing in on Kakao. If the current trend continues, it appears that YouTube will surpass Kakao in the second half of the year. Meanwhile, as Google expands its influence in search, local portal Naver is witnessing a reduction in its footprint.
According to the mobile index statistics of mobile big data platform company IGAWorks on June 5, Kakao's Monthly Active Users (MAU) last month was recorded to be 41,458,675. While it retained its top spot, the gap with second place YouTube (40,951,188) has decreased to only 507,487.
MAU represents the number of people who use the service at least once a month. Although Kakao has maintained its top position in MAU for three years since the mobile index began consolidated counting through the two major smartphone operating systems, Android and iOS, in May 2020, its position is becoming increasingly unstable. As of May, the MAU gap between the two platforms decreased from 2,987,225 in 2020 to 2,272,538 in 2021, 1,534,940 in 2022, and into the 500,000s this year.
If this decline continues, YouTube has a high chance of surpassing Kakao and becoming number one in the second half of this year. This would be the first time a foreign platform has overtaken a domestic platform in monthly MAU statistics.
YouTube has already surpassed Kakao in monthly total usage time and active device indicators. As of last May, the total usage time for YouTube was 1.52 billion hours, while Kakao was 536.55 million hours, nearly three times less. The number of active devices is 41,892,690 for YouTube and 4,366,370 for Kakao.
Changes are also being detected in the search market. According to internet trend statistics, Naver's market share, the top web MAU, has dropped from 64.5% in January to 59.6% in February, 57.3% in March, 55.9% in April, and 55.7% in May. On the other hand, Google’s market share, which is in second place, is showing an upward trend: 30.0% in February, 32.3% in March, 34.0% in April, and 34.8% in May.
This reflects a preference for platforms rich in visual information, such as videos and images, centered around Generation Z (those born in the mid-1990s to early 2000s). According to OpenSurvey’s “Social Media · Search Portal Report 2023,” YouTube ranked second and Google fourth among platforms used for information search within the past week. There has been an increase in information searches on Instagram and YouTube compared to a year ago.
It is pointed out that one of the reasons is that global big tech companies like Google and Microsoft are quickly introducing super-giant AIs such as Bard and Bing, respectively, to their search engines, while domestic companies are still preparing for such service launches.