Joyn fails to challenge Kakao, Line

Local carriers’ latest chat service Joyn is suffering from lackluster popularity. / Korea Times file

Carriers’ chat service earning little interest

By Cho Mu-hyun

Local mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus are pinning their hopes on their latest service Joyn as a new revenue line, but it is being marginalized by strong competition.

Joyn is a joint project of the members of GSMA, the global association of mobile operators. It is what is known as a rich communication suite (RCS), where users can chat, text, call and share files simultaneously via an app.

It has been compared to free mobile messengers Kakao Talk and Line, managed by Kakao and NHN respectively, with industry observers generally believing it will fall behind those services.

“Realistically, carriers won’t be able to earn money directly from the service,” said HMC Securities analyst Hwang Sung-jin by phone. “What carriers are attempting to do is draw traffic to the service and make money later through advertisements or games.”

“However, not only is there no clear differentiation point between Joyn and competing services, but it came into the market too late whereas rivals such as Kakao Talk and Line have already established themselves.”

Hwang said operators are pinning their hopes on a long-term return but similar services released by manufacturers and content providers will continue to eat away at possible revenue from the service.

Local mobile operators are aggressively expanding their portfolio to offset faltering voice call and text message revenue following the deployment of the data-intensive long-term evolution (LTE) network.

Part of their plan is to make their own online market where content can be bought and shared. They hope this will be created by wide dissemination of Joyn, which made its debut in December.

“Eventually, we want Joyn to become a platform for consumers and developers to buy and sell content, especially media and games,” said an official from one carrier, asking not to be named. “We acknowledge that it is very similar to Kakao Talk or Line. We also acknowledge that they have a better foothold in the market. But we will upgrade our service to keep up.”

“It must be noted that Joyn is a global movement carried out by all members of GSMA,” he said.

The combined users of Joyn numbered around 2.2 million as of Tuesday, according to telecom officials, comparatively lower than Kakao Talk’s 80 million and Line’s 90 million.

Despite being a “global movement,” reception overseas also seems lackluster. For example, Telefonica, which started the service a year earlier, has only attracted 400,000 users to it thus far.

The individual offerings also seem to differ widely between operators, as each is more focused on their own revenue line than creating a combined ecosystem, according to an executive of GSMA.

“We want to create a unified movement for Joyn but it is not as well coordinated as we wanted it to be,” the executive said. “It is more fragmented than we wanted it to be. But we are hoping eventually that Joyn becomes ‘the’ platform globally.”

To attract users initially, local carriers are offering Joyn for free until May, while SK Telecom recently said the service will remain free permanently. KT and LG Uplus said they were undecided, but will likely do the same due to the competitive nature of the telecom market, according to industry officials.

Joyn is also limited to Android devices, as Apple has been resisting giving the go-ahead for an iOS version as it will compete with its own iMessage. Samsung and other manufacturers are also developing or have released their own content platforms and chat services.

“We plan to have all the handsets launched with Joyn installed on them for the future, using our leverage as operators over manufacturers,” said another industry official. “All the handsets going forward will have Joyn, which we believe will help establish its brand with consumers.”