KakaoTalk nominated in Global Mobile Awards

MANILA, Philippines - Kakao announced that KakaoTalk has been short-listed as one of the Most Innovative Mobile App nominees for the Global Mobile Awards 2014.

Behind the Global Mobile Awards is the GSMA, an alliance of mobile operators and other key players in the mobile ecosystem, which has been recognizing the world’s leading mobile devices, services, apps and technologies for the past 19 years.

The awards will be given to leaders around the world that are driving mobile innovation in eight different categories, including Connected Life Awards, Best Mobile Services, Apps of the Year, Best Mobile Handsets and Devices, Best Mobile Technology and more.

By having KakaoTalk short-listed as one of the Most Innovative Mobile Apps in the Apps of the Year category, Kakao has been officially recognized as a game-changing developer that is pushing back boundaries and moving the collective market to the next level.

The announcement recognizes KakaoTalk as having brought on technical, commercial and business model innovations that have benefited consumers with new levels of functionality, access, value and convenience.

While KakaoTalk’s roots lie in mobile instant messaging, the app has evolved into an innovative social mobile platform that offers commerce, games, digital content, business marketing and more.

KakaoTalk was the first mobile messenger app to introduce a mobile commerce model that allowed users to send and receive gifts within and through mobile messaging, provide a “emoticon store” where users can purchase emoticons that were created by third-party artists, propose a new genre of marketing and advertisement where users opt-in to regularly receive news from brands/groups of interest, and bring on social games to a mobile messaging platform, in addition to many more.

Continued innovation, obtained by experimenting with new service and business models, eventually created new success stories for subsequent services to benchmark.

“KakaoTalk showed the world what true potential a mobile messenger holds in the smart mobile era, and we believe this contribution has been recognized through this award nominee selection,” said a Kakao spokesperson.

The final winners, chosen from the 160 short-listed services and companies for 2014, will be announced at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Feb. 25.