Naver’s mobile social network service(SNS) ‘Band’ is ahead of ‘KakaoStory’ for the first time in the total dwell time.
According to KoreanClick on March 16th, Band ranked second after ‘Facebook’ in the mobile SNS category weekly indicators for the first week of March, with a total dwell time of over 500 miliion minutes. KakaoStory was beaten by Band for the first time with a total dwell time was 400 million 6000 minutes. All the while, domestic mobile SNS total dwell time rankings were in the order of Facebook, KakaoStory, and Band, but this order has changed in March. The total dwell time is the sum of the time that users stayed in the service. It is used as the standard of measuring SNS influence. The longer the dwell time, the higher the service loyalty and spreading power.
Band has also reached a similar level with KakaoStory in the number of users. Band’s Weekly Active Users(WAU, people who have used the service at least once within the given period) for the first week of March was 12.7 million, which was about 95.4% of KakaoStory’s.
Band also recorded 14.7 million Monthly Active Users(MAU)(until February, KoreanClick), which was around 80% of KakaoStory’s. The ranking for domestic mobile SNS active users is KakaoStory, Facebook, and Band.
KakaoStory’s MAU this February had only increased by 380 thousand as compared with the corresponding period of last year, whereas Band had increased by 3 million 560 thousand during the same period. Band has increased by over 9 times of KakaoStory’s increase.
Band is the mobile SNS that CampMobile, Naver’s subsidiary, developed. Ever since its foundation in February, 2013, CampMobile has consistently targeted the mobile market starting with Band.
The online portal industry is paying attention to whether a déjà vu of 2006 will appear. At that time, Naver Café outran Daum Café, which was the original representative service in many indicators. The fact that one of the people who played a leading role during the time was Representative Lee Ram of CampMobile is also eye-catching.
A Naver official explained, “Band pioneered and dominated in advance the market for Group SNS. Finding diverse communities according to age, region, style of meeting and supporting specialized functions, and constantly discovering motives for usage based on the identity of closed SNS was the background of growth. ”
A Daum Kakao official explained, “Since KakaoStory contents can be checked without running the KakaoStory app, through the profile page of KakaoTalk, etc., simple comparisons with other services are difficult. It is also reflected in the indicators that meeting based SNS has become relatively active as all sorts of meetings are created especially along with the start of a new semester in March.”
Daum Kakao’s policy is to make KakaoStory a platform where confirmation and discovery of useful information are made available through a story channel that exceeds simply sharing daily lives with friends.
CampMobile will carry out update 4.0 during this month, which will expand Band from a friend-base-centered community service to that with common interests and topics.
Naver’s official emphasized that “Band will establish a solid foothold among group SNS’s as we expand roles to Biz Band in which business is possible based on strong activity and user loyalty.”
Staff Reporter Kim,Si-so