Daum, Japan’s game giant team up

Choi Sae-hoon, right, CEO of Daum Communications, shakes hands with Isao Moriyasu, representative director and president of DeNA after signing an agreement to jointly develop a mobile game platform, at Daum’s headquarters in central Seoul, Wednesday.

By Yoon Ja-young

Daum Communications, the operator of the portal site Daum, is bolstering its bet on the mobile market. It will jointly launch a mobile game platform with DeNA, a giant Japanese game company, to snap up the market leadership amid the transition from desktop to mobile devices.

Daum Communications and DeNA, which operates the global mobile game platform Mobage, signed an agreement to jointly develop a mobile game platform here.

Daum Mobage, scheduled to be launched early next year, will offer hit games such as “We Rule,” “Tap Fish” and “Ninja.” They will be offered in Korean through the Android market. Users can access all games of Daum Mobage with their Daum username and password. They can also play Mobage games on Daum’s mobile applications such as My People, a mobile messenger, and Yozm, a social networking service.

Transition to mobile

With the infiltration of smartphones, people are increasingly using the Internet on mobile devices instead of desktop computers. Daum regards it as an opportunity to turn the game around against Naver, the perennial champion of the local portal industry.

“Internet users are rapidly switching to mobile devices. We have had some achievements by focusing on the mobile market, and decided to strengthen the mobile game platform to provide users with more exciting games, which are a key content,” said Choi Sae-hoon, CEO of Daum Communications.

“Games are the number one category in smartphone application markets. When comparing the market size of Korea with that of Japan, the one here has huge growth potential considering the infiltration of smartphones.”

Choi said Daum has shown competence in setting up the basic platform and building up the Internet business ecosystem. “Now that the mobile market is open, what we have to do is set up an attractive mobile platform.”

Daum’s efforts in the mobile sector have started paying off. Adam, its mobile advertisement platform, has become the top player in the market, and My People, its messenger service, has 14 million users.

“According to data by Korean Click, Daum recorded 2.4 billion mobile Web page views last month, higher than 1.9 billion for Naver,” said Kim Jin-ku, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities. “When considering that page views is the core index in setting advertisement rates, Daum could create an opportunity to steak the NHN’s lead in the mobile sector.”

“We have succeeded in creating huge user traffic, but lack specialty in games. That’s why we linked up with Mobage, which boasts higher average revenue per user than any other game company as well as a global platform,” Choi said. DeNA is the leading mobile game company in Japan with more than 32 million users. It offers around 1,500 games in Japan, China and the United States.

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