The latest craze in the IM category KakaoTalk brought to the Philippines by the Koreans about two weeks ago made it to the Top 1 now. It has become the most downloaded IM app both in Apps Store and Google Play.
Currently, Google Play reports that it has already reached almost 1.2Million reviews overtaking Line messenger with only almost a million. Line messenger was also launched in the Philippines in February 2013.
The impressive results are backed by Kakao’s aggressive localization efforts, in addition to the messenger’s fun and unique features. On August 7th, Kakao launched a TV and radio ad of KakaoTalk featuring K-pop superstars, Big Bang and Philippines’ pop princess, Sarah Geronimo. These two stars are also featured on KakaoTalk’s Plus Friend channel, a fun interactive advertisement platform where users can add Sarah and BigBang’s official accounts to their Friends’ list to receive latest updates and content including pictures and videos on them. Kakao plans to partner with more celebrities and companies in the Philippines to offer Filipino users content that is locally relevant.
“We are overwhelmed by the support of the Filipino users. We are very optimistic that our application will keep growing and we are determined to become an integral part of the local ecosystem and how Filipinos interact,” shares Jang. “We are working on creating localized stickers and content that are more appealing and relatable to Filipino users.”
Kakao has also been offering free BigBang and Sarah Geronimo animated emoticons and stickers for those who download the application, so that they can get a taste of the fun and expressive communication that stickers offer. In addition, Filipino KakaoTalk users can get a chance to win exclusive KakaoFriends dolls by chatting with ‘Event KakaoTalk’ until August 25.
