Published on Thursday, July 15 2010 by Sung Hwan Ahn
Nate released its AppStore revenue yesterday and according to the report, it has reached 1 Billion KRW or roughly $1 Million USD since launching the platform in September 2009, just under a year. As a developer and publisher on Nate’s platform, we are excited about those numbers and its potential.
Our team has translated the article below:
Nate AppStore Revenue Marks 1 Billion KRW according to SK Communications, Nate AppStore has accumulated 1 billion KRW since its launch in Sept. 2009. As Korea’s first social network game (SNG) platform, Nate AppStore first introduced a paypal system on the game called “Crime World” developed by Rock You in October 2009.
Just four months after, accumulated revenue marked 1 billion KRW in January 2010, 2 billion KRW in April 2010, and 8 billion KRW in June 2010. According SK Communications, it is those simulation games that were most profitable due to their virtual item sales.
Nate AppStore is continuously introducing new business model such as corporate advertisement applications, and it will soon introduce its mobile AppStore for smart phone users as well.
Published on Wednesday, July 14 2010 by Sung Hwan Ahn
The current Korean SNS industry could be described as a monopoly of Nate AppStore. Nate AppStore utilizes their already established and successful SNS called “Cyworld” to accelerate their growth. With Cyworld’s pool of 21 million users, Nate AppStore has a comparative advantage over other competitors such as Naver and Daum when it comes to securing potential users. The biggest reason behind this is because Nate started as a SNS while Naver and Daum started as a search engine or a portal site.
Out of 21 million user pool Nate has, only 13% or 2.7 million users have used Nate AppStore so far and new users are steadily increasing everyday. 49 developers have published 99 applications as of 14 July 2010, but excluding all the individual or small studios, about 10 major developers exist in the market. Considering the size and growth of consumers, the current market has an excess demand.
Nate’s major competitor Naver and Daum are the relative newcomers in the SNS industry yet their potential should not be neglected. Naver, for example, is the no.1 portal site and has accumulated 18 million bloggers, 6 million community clubs, and 1 million Me2Day(Korean version of Twitter). With its pool of users, Naver is planning to launch a SNG platform (Open Social) by the end of 2010. Naver’s app store would definitely rise as the next “blue ocean” for many SNG developers worldwide.
