By Kim Yoo-chul
SK Communications, the social networking service (SNS) affiliate of the SK Group, is seeking to make a major comeback as its free photo app is receiving favorable responses not only in Korea but also in other countries across Asia and the United States.
The company, owner of popular search portal Nate and its web cousin social networking site Cyworld, briefly suffered a downturn due to the inadvertent leak of personal information of 35,000,000 Korean users.
This incident eventually triggered a shift of its business to now target foreign markets bringing with it changes to its business structure, said company spokeswoman Chung Ha-nee, Wednesday.
While demand for Web-connected devices such as tablets and smartphones is steadily growing thanks to the industries’ transition to ``all-in-one’’ gadgets, SK Communications is joining the fray, by pushing its Cymera application.
Cymera is a free application helping anyone to take a photo like a professional photographer by using seven kinds of digital lens effects and four kinds of shooting modes. It also provides various editing and filters through face recognition, said Chung.
Users can share photos with existing SNS tools such as SK’s Cyworld, and Facebook and Twitter.
``Cymera is an amazing camera app, which perfectly combines a camera with photoshop. Compared with various other apps, it has added some special elements which makes it more practical and engaging,’’ said the spokeswoman.
The firm said Cymera has been downloaded more than 5 million times overseas, since the service was introduced 11 months ago.
``As of the end of February this year, there have been over 13 million downloads including 8 million in Korea,’’ said Chung.
Last April Cymera ranked top of Google Market’s photo-sharing category in Thailand, a country known for its love of K-Pop and other Korean cultural content. The app has since remained within the top three on the charts there.
``Cymera’s monthly growth rate in the United States, India, Japan and Indonesia hovers around 80 percent. We will add more features such as a photo combination function to maintain the current bullish track,’’ said Chung, adding the firm is in talks with major local cosmetics firms to offer another service.