Malang Studio, well known for their popular alarm app, AlarmMon, has recently raised 2.0 billion KRW (aprox. $1.9M)  in its latest fund raising round from Yellow Mobile, a leading local mobile-centric company who’s business portfolio ranges from mobile commerce to media/publishing and marketing/advertising. This fund raising by Malang is the latest of the series of milestones that the company has accomplished in recent months. Early this year, the company achieved a break-even in its monthly financial…

The much awaited global launch of Samsung Galaxy S5 missed its launch date. The launch planned on 11th April, was not delayed, but started selling 2 weeks ahead of schedule. This was pulled off by Samsung’s telecom and distribution partners in Korea – SK Telecom and KT. SK Telecom was the first to start selling the device on Thursday 27th March. Later, KT also decided to start selling, as it did not…

Coinplug, one of Seoul’s foremost bitcoin startups has just announced that they have raised a second round of funding from Silicon Valley VCs, to the tune of $400k. This replicates a funding round that the company received just last November for the same amount. What is also impressive is that both rounds have come from Silicon Valley based Investors, a once rare occurrence for Korean startups. This story also follows news we…

There are two wars tearing apart Korea at the moment. One involves flying missiles and deadly danger, and the other is a tech battle between cute characters. While the south has returned fire today against the North for firing missiles into disputed ocean off the coast of the peninsula, Line and KakaoTalk are battling against each other in a cold war that is developing between the two mobile messaging apps.   LINE…

Public transportation systems are still clumsy to use. If you are in the stone ages of technology, you are standing in queue to buy your ticket. Then joining another queue to get your ticket verified and enter the station. And not to forget, you are asked to tender exact change at the ticket counter; another hassle. If you are in the more developed world, you need to carry a card that helps…

Smilegate, Korea-based maker of online games, has just announced a $112 million buyout of 20% of Sundaytoz’ stock in a move that makes the company behind global success, Crossfire, the largest stake holder. Smilegate is one of the most successful players in the Korean online gaming industry. For the last last two consecutive years Smilegate has been the proud owner / developer of the world’s highest grossing online game. Crossfire, with revenues of…

Since 2011, PatiGames has been making Korean Mobile Applications. This is a review of their game I love Coffee. In the game, you serve customers coffee, clean up and even make coffee. It runs kind of like Diner Dash. The concept is actually quite good and it has the potential to be a great game. The Good This game has a wonderful graphic interface. It is reminds me of the gameboy interface….

Groupon recently announced liquidation of all assets of Groupon Korea, and a plan to focus all its efforts to promote its recent acquisition Ticket Monster (TMON) in Asia’s third largest e-commerce market. Groupon now joins the long list of global companies, which have failed to capture market share in South Korea. Recently (December 2012), Yahoo also shut down its Korean operations, as profitability became an issue in South Korea. South Korea is…

KT – Cisco team up for 5G network Korean telecommunications giant KT said recently that it aims to jointly develop a fifth-generation (5G) network with Cisco Systems under new corporate initiatives being pursued by KT CEO Hwang Chang-gyu. “While 5G is still just a concept rather than a reality, you should keep in mind that being proactive means thinking and acting ahead of anticipated trends,” said a KT executive. The remarks come…

Between 1997 and 2001, 3 web portal giants were born in Korea in a mini .com boom that mirrored similar in the west. Daum, Naver and Nate utilized the incredible IT infrastructure that had been built through a massive, strategic cash injection from the Korean government that aimed (and succeeded) in powering Korea to the status of one of the most progressive technology hubs in the world. This legacy still prevails and…

A Google spokesperson has reached out to TechInAsia who also posted this news, and pointed out that “it hasn’t done or offered any of the things described in this post.” References  were initially sourced from ZDnet Korea (http://www.zdnet.co.kr/news/news_view.asp?artice_id=20140219145110). They have since taken down the articles used as reference for this article. We apologize for the inaccuracy of this post. Korea has long been a brand-obsessed shopping nation. Now Google aims to assist up-and-coming app…

Mobile Shopping Users In Korea Exceed 20M For First Time A recent survey has shown that Koreans using mobile shopping applications has grown such that there are now more mobile shoppers than there are KakaoGame players in Korea. According to Rankey.com who conducted the survey, the number of shopping app users totaled 21.63M, as of January 2014. This figure is 2.7M higher than the number of KakaoGame Play users and represents a…

Camp Mobile, an app developer that was acquired by Line last year has just announced that its mobile app, Whoscall, which is designed to protect users from “smishing,” or SMS phishing, has passed the 10-million-mark in cumulative downloads in about 40 countries worldwide. The downloading of Whoscall is now active in about 40 countries, with the mobile app being selected as the Best App of the Year 2013 at Google Play in seven…

Samsung unveils Tizen-based wearable devices Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest maker of smartphones, unveiled its first wearable devices that run on its own mobile operating system Tizen in Spain on Sunday, as it seeks to break its heavy reliance on Google Inc.’s Android software. The unveiling of the Samsung Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo, Samsung’s successors to the Galaxy Gear, which was released in September last year, also comes as…

There has been much talk about Facebook’s inability to crack the tough, localized Korean market, but in an interview with Facebook’s top brass in Korea, this situation seems to be improving. Korea is a key test market for Facebook and this should send a message to other global tech companies hoping to do business in Korea, particularly those engaged with expansion on mobile. It was also proven last year that Facebook was taking…

The researchers at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) announced that they developed a head-mounted display–30 times faster processing speed compared to that of Google Glass. ‘K-Glass’, developed by Yoo Hoi-Jun, Professor of Electrical Engineering at KAIST, and his team, is a high-performance, extremely low-powered head-mounted display (HMD) embedding an augmented reality (AR) chip–30x faster and with 3 to 12x longer operating time than Google Glass. Despite the sensation that Google created…

Kakao Corp., developers of Korea’s favorite messaging service and social platform, Kakao Talk, will be listing its stock publicly next May. This follows the recent news that SundayToz also successfully listed its stock in August 2013, and demonstrates further growth in the domestic tech industry, that has been attracting much attention in the international press attention recently. What’s more interesting though is the potential opportunity that Facebook has presented following today’s news that…

Google, which has been relatively slow in expanding its market presence in South Korea, is now fast catching up to local rivals in display Ad sales (one segment of online advertising), according to industry sources. This news will be a surprise to many who have been watching Google’s advance in Korea with skepticism, as reported by beSUCCESS only a month ago.   This news will also fall sweetly on the ears of…

The local market for mobile advertisement nearly doubled year-on-year in 2013, a government report showed Tuesday, amid the soaring number of smartphone users in the country. The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said the size of South Korea’s mobile advertising market was estimated at 416 billion won (US$392 million) last year, a leap from the 215.9 billion won (US$202.5 million) in 2012. Last year’s figure accounted for 4 percent of…

Reuters: Asian chat services KakaoTalk, LINE and WeChat threaten to overturn the mobile order of things, usurping the role of Google Inc, Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and telecoms carriers as gatekeeper to the consumer. Where these internet and telecoms giants once controlled the lucrative choke points of the industry, social messaging services are fast emerging as an alternative distribution channel for adverts, apps, and goods and services. For example, Tencent Holdings’ WeChat allows its more than…