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Industry watchers, however, are focusing their attention on when Kakao will introduce the same service for domestic-to-domestic callers. Given the percentage of KakaoTalk users living in Korea is 75-80 percent out of 46 million total members, it is obvious that the company launched the international call service lately as the groundwork for entry to the domestic phone calling market.
Seoul, Korea¶ May 28, 2012 -- Kakao Inc., the company providing the popular mobile messaging service KakaoTalk for smartphone users, said on May 25 that it had begun offering VoiceTalk, the mobile VoIP service, to international callers. However, domestic calling on VoiceTalk is still not allowed on the network.
Since February of this year, Kakao had started the VoiceTalk service to Japan on an experimental basis, exploring market responses and checking service quality. The company recently expanded the service area to all around the world after deciding that it was ready for global launch. From now on, KakaoTalk users living overseas can make phone calls to some other KakaoTalk members in Korea free of charge.
Industry watchers, however, are focusing their attention on when Kakao will introduce the same service for domestic-to-domestic callers. Given the percentage of KakaoTalk users living in Korea is 75-80 percent out of 46 million total members, it is obvious that the company launched the international call service lately as the groundwork for entry to the domestic phone calling market.
Kakao has been reluctant to introduce VoiceTalk for fears of setting off the controversy of “net neutrality” and aggravating the relationship with big mobile service providers. As more and more users switch to free VoiceTalk for domestic calls, the incumbent players will cry foul as they own the network that Kakao uses to provide the service that takes away the net owners’ income.
Although Kakao has not set the date for free domestic call service introduction, it would not delay the launch timetable indefinitely partly because it constitutes discrimination against domestic members in favor of overseas users. Already the company is running tests for domestic VoiceTalk mainly through its employees who are given IDs for free domestic calls.
Lee Seok-Woo, the co-president of Kakao, said, “We can’t tell our domestic members to wait forever. It’s bad for our business, too.” His remarks suggest that Kakao will introduce domestic VoiceTalk sooner than later.
Sean Chung (press@whowired.com)
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