(Photo= Yonhap news)

 

[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Jisun] The number of KakaoTalk users continues to decline. Analysts say users are leaving, with the number falling below 45 million in March for the first time in a year and 10 months.

According to the mobile index statistics on the 9th, the number of monthly active users (MAU) of the KakaoTalk app stood at 44,972,002 last month, down 221,466 from February (45,193,468).

It is the first time in 22 months that KakaoTalk MAU has fallen below the 45 million mark since May 2022. The number dropped more than 2.1 million from 47,074,590 in April last year.

KakaoTalk gave YouTube the No. 1 app in Korea in December last year. At that time, the gap with YouTube was 104,980, but last month it expanded to 543,152, five times.

As the use of messenger among young people has diversified into Instagram DM (direct message), Facebook messenger, and Telegram, the number of KakaoTalk users is on the decline.

KakaoTalk's share in the mobile index social network sector stood at 39.62 percent last month, down 2.60 percentage points from 42.22 percent in the same month last year, but Instagram's share rose 4.61 percentage points to 22.77 percent over the same period.

On the other hand, YouTube is gaining huge popularity from young people, with its short video "Shorts," which was released in July 2021, and the number of users is increasing. The average monthly usage time of YouTube last month was 1,962,235,650 hours, 3.5 times higher than KakaoTalk (548,144,204 hours) and 5.3 times higher than Naver (356,827,289 hours).

 

 

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