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The variety of emoji subscription purchases on the South Korean messaging app KakaoSpeak has dropped by a 3rd over the yr, mum or dad agency Kakao mentioned in quarterly earnings name Thursday. It blamed Google’s new in-app cost coverage, which forces apps to make use of the Android-maker’s personal billing system.
KakaoSpeak’s Emoticon Plus subscription service, which prices roughly $3.80 per 30 days, permits customers to entry limitless emojis. TechCrunch reported in June that South Korean app builders and content material suppliers stand to see their paid subscription and repair charges rise due to a current change in Google’s Play market that corners a 15-30% fee charge.
Kakao chief government Whon Namkoong mentioned that the unfavorable impression of Google’s new billing coverage is “inevitable,” including that the variety of KakaoSpeak emoji purchases had dropped after Google launched its new cost coverage in June of this yr.
“From the customers’ perspective, due to Google’s new in-app cost coverage, the [digital goods] value hurdle has gone up,” Namkoong mentioned. “Because of this, if you happen to take a look at [KakoTalk’s] Emoticon Plus [subscription] service, the variety of new customers has gone all the way down to one-third of what we had seen over the yr.”
Kakao plans to work on countermeasures to reply to the change, Namkoong mentioned.
“We’re planning on operating a promotion for customers, utilizing Google’s in-app cost, and in addition for our subscribers with a purpose to ensure that we reduce the impression from the in-app cost within the second half of the yr,” he mentioned.
The U.S. tech large enforced adjustments to its in-app cost system this June to cost transactions overflowing from non-game apps and different forms of digital items together with over-the-top (OTT), music streaming, net cartoons, digital ebook apps and extra. The non-games apps, previous to the change, had been permitted to direct customers to exterior cost sources by in-app hyperlinks.
Google mentioned earlier this yr in a weblog publish that “all builders promoting digital items and companies of their apps are required to make use of Google Play’s billing system,” and clarified that apps utilizing exterior cost hyperlinks will probably be faraway from Google Play Retailer beginning in June to adjust to Google’s new cost system.
Kakao runs two companies: the platform enterprise (Kakao Speak, Kakao Mobility, Kakao Pay) and the content material enterprise (Kakao Video games, Kakao Webtoons and Melon music streaming). The South Korean web firm posted its second-quarter income of $1.3 billion (1.82 trillion WON), up 34.8% from the identical interval a yr earlier, and a web revenue of $77.3 million (101.2 billion WON) for the quarter, down 68% from a yr earlier.
