“This is one of the most innovative photo apps ever released” was a comment the British daily Guardian recently made on the photo app Korean smart mobile firm KTH has released. It added that it performs better than any other apps in both convenience and editing function. KTH has seeking to transform itself into a global app developer, discarding domestic portal service Paran.com.

The photo app, Pudding.to, has been sweeping the world’s app market. It has been attracting popularity at the global level thanks to a variety of functions although it’s a latecomer.

Industry sources said Sunday that the GPS-based camera app has rapidly been growing, armored with a variety of editing functions and simple instructions since its inception early this year. At the outset, there was a strong rival, Instagram. But the new app soon swept the top post in global app stores, such as Thailand and Singapore. The subscription population at home and abroad has exceeded the 2 million mark with more than 50,000 photos being registered from 270 countries throughout the world a day on average.

The app, SeeOn, that social networking service (SNS) firm SeeOn has released, has reached 2.5 million subscriptions. SeeOn is location-based SNS enabling subscribers to make friends with neighbors or stores nearby by adding their locations. It has become popular - as factors such as Caption Selection are grafted onto the app - although it is similar with Foursquare from the U.S. in overall composition, which was released first.

SeeOn released marketing platform, SeeOn Shop, early this year aimed at dominating regional commercial zones. SeeOn Shop, a combination of an existing SNS and social commerce, has already been attracting Mister Donut, Burger Hunter and Madfry Chicken and other fast food franchises and regional firms.

Kakao Story released last March has steadily attracted subscriptions from overseas. It is expected to witness rapid growth given the subscriptions to KakaoTalk amounting to 50 million. Kakao Story has been actively used as an outlet for communication between family members at home and abroad thanks to the rapid growth of subscriptions overseas. The strong point is that Kakao Story enables users to register their friends simply with a phone number with complicated functions cut. The app surpassed Facebook on the domestic market in terms of spent hours last month. It is also attractive even to elderly people with the subscriptions in their 50s or older reached 800,000.

“Korea has been top in the world in terms of smartphone handset but has fallen behind other countries in app competition,” said an industry expert. “The ever-growing popularity of the native app testifies that Korean app can also compete against foreigners although they appear later than foreign products, if they have a competitive edge.”