Kakao to introduce video-streaming app in Japan, leveraging success of manga platform

Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s dominant mobile messenger KakaoTalk, will introduce this summer a new video streaming app in Japan that will leverage the content and “free-if-you-wait” business model behind its popular manga comics platform Piccoma.

The launch of Piccoma TV was announced by Kakao Japan during a press conference held in Tokyo Tuesday to mark the two-year anniversary of Piccoma’s introduction in Japan.

The upcoming service, dubbed Piccoma TV, will be launched as early as this August. It will feature live-action TV shows based on popular manga featured on the Piccoma platform. 

Users will be able to watch 10 minutes of free video snippets every day, and pay if they want to keep watching or wait 24 hours for the next release, according to the company.

The payment model is similar to that of Kakao’s mobile manga platform Piccoma, which breaks down a manga series into chapters that are released one by one every day. Users can access a chapter for free if they wait 24 hours, and those who cannot brave the wait can pay for the next chapter.

Kakao Japan said that it had raised 824 million yen ($7.7 million) in the first quarter of this year, up 446 percent from a year earlier. It had also amassed 2.9 million monthly active users as of the end of March. 

With the record, Piccoma outranked popular global video streaming platform Netflix in terms of in-app revenues on Japan’s Google Play and Apple’s App Store marketplaces, the company said.

Piccoma is at the center of Kakao’s push to establish a meaningful presence overseas. The mobile technology giant, despite its dominance in Korea, has largely failed to build up visibility in markets overseas since its foundation back in 2010.

With Piccoma, Kakao also hopes to become an international platform facilitating the exchange of Asian webtoon content across borders.

Kakao said it plans to hold a web comics competition which will select the top three top webtoons from Korea, Japan and China, and make them available to readers in all three countries via Piccoma. 

 By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)