YouTube catches up with KakaoTalk as Koreans hunt video content

Google Korea holds its Google for Korea 2023 event at Shilla Hotel in Jung District, central Seoul, in September. [YONHAP]

YouTube has caught up to Korea's top mobile messenger app KakaoTalk in terms of monthly active users (MAU), with the difference only amounting to 336 users in December.

KakaoTalk topped the list for MAU with 41,021,737 users, while YouTube followed closely behind with 41,021,401 users. This is the smallest difference recorded since data on users for both Android and iOS started to be published in May 2020.

The increase in YouTube users was largely due to the increase in people in their 30s using the video platform. YouTube had already been the media platform with the most MAU among teenagers and people in their 20s and became the platform to have the most people in their 30s as its MAU at some point in July to December 2023.

According to app analysis service WiseApp in November, Koreans spent over 100 billion minutes on YouTube in October last year, at least three times the amount of time they spent on KakaoTalk and Korea’s largest online platform Naver.

A total of 104.4 billion minutes of YouTube videos were watched by Korean users in October.

The monthly amount jumped 1.6 times over three years, from 67.1 billion minutes in October 2021 to 104.4 billion minutes last year.

The most frequently used mobile apps by Koreans were YouTube, KakaoTalk, Naver, Instagram and TikTok, in that order. Users devoted three times as much time to YouTube compared to KakaoTalk and five times as much compared to Naver. Koreans spent 31.9 billion minutes on KakaoTalk and 22.2 billion minutes on Naver.

The amount of time spent on YouTube by Korean users is accelerating each year, with the gap in usage time between the three apps increasing year-on-year.

YouTube Music also outpaced Melon, previously Korea's largest music streaming service, in its MAU in December, with YouTube Music users reaching 6,496,035 people and Melon users amounting to 6,238,334.

“YouTube saw a rapid increase in users and usage time during the Covid-19 pandemic, and has continuously seen the numbers rise even after it became endemic,” said WiseApp. “The growth in time spent watching short-form content is analyzed to be the biggest influence on the increase in usage.”

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]