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Social networking and mobile communication services are shoring up their resources...
as mobile messaging sees a surge in popularity. Sohn Jung-in has more. Companies in the social
networking and mobile communications sector are enjoying the benefits of a robust and
growing mobile messaging market,... as they gear up for a battle that will determine who
will become the top brand for more than a billion smartphone
users worldwide.
In Korea, search engine Naver is number one, thanks to its mobile messaging app Line.
Line's annual sales last year stood at 427 million U.S. dollars,... a 690 percent increase
from a year earlier. The messaging application has grown to more
than 370 million subscribers since its creation in 2011.
Naver's market value in Korea is 27-billion dollars, the fifth largest in the country,
and there's only a small gap between it and fourth place SK Hynix and third place Hyundai
Mobis. Naver saw its stock value skyrocket after
it split from NHN last August. That landed the company in sixth place, allowing
it to overtake KIA motors in December. And just last month, it beat POSCO to take
fifth place.
In the global mobile messaging market, Facebook is also back on track since topping its sales
target in the third quarter of last year. Its recent acquisition of fast-growing messaging
start-up WhatsApp has also helped it maintain its momentum.
Social media giant Twitter is also going strong. Its initial public offering was priced at
26 dollars in November last year, but now its share price has nearly doubled to roughly
54 dollars. China's biggest internet company, Tencent,
which operates Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, has 600 million registered users
and a share price of nearly 80 U.S. dollars. Sohn Jung-in, Arirang News.