Mobile Internet
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
March 8, 2012 Industry Report Mobile Internet Daewoo Securities Co., Ltd. January traffic: NHN, Daum, and KakaoTalk led the way Chang-kwean Kim +822-768-4321 The mobile internet market is growing [email protected] Mobile internet traffic data for the month of January confirmed that the mobile Jee-hyun Moon segment has become oligopolistic. However, monetization models for the segment +822-768-3615 [email protected] have just begun to take shape. This stands in sharp contrast to the situation in the PC internet segment, which already has well-established monetization models (e.g., display ads, search ads, and online games). We originally expected that innovative services, globally-popular social network services (e.g., Facebook), and social network games (e.g. CityVille, FarmVille) would create new trends in the mobile internet market. However, domestic mobile internet traffic has showed similar patterns to PC traffic thus far. It remains to be seen which model will become the key determinant for revenues. However, as the pace of development for mobile internet-related models has been picking up since early 2012, investors should keep tabs on related traffic. NHN topped the list of January mobile page views; Daum was the runner-up In January, NHN (naver.com) ranked first in terms of mobile page views (via both mobile website and apps), followed by Daum Communications (daum.net). And KakaoTalk (a messenger service) remained the overall leader in terms of duration. Among search services, NHN held the largest market share (58.8%) in terms of time spent, followed by Google (21.8%) and Daum (17.2%). Focus on NHN’s mobile search ad growth NHN (035420 KS) is our top pick for the mobile internet segment, as the company is highly likely to secure solid monetization models (e.g., mobile search ads). Indeed, Naver JapanÊs Line messenger service is becoming increasingly popular. The number of unique users of the service (via both mobile devices and PCs) has reached 32mn thus far in March. Top Android phone sites and apps in January (Â000 people, %, min., days, Â000 views) Rank Domain Combined unique visitors Reach rate Average duration Average frequency Page views 1 android.com 11,571 97.6 839 16.1 2,274 2 kakao.com 11,300 95.3 837 18.5 934 3 naver.com 11,056 93.2 396 15.2 2,234,820 4 google.com 10,072 84.9 27 5.6 61,094 5 daum.net 9,147 77.1 241 9.9 2,078,335 6 google.co.kr 7,798 65.8 16 6.3 202,045 7 youtube.com 7,351 62.0 62 3.6 20,572 8 nate.com 7,028 59.3 164 7.1 694,403 9 samsung.com 6,528 55.1 649 18.0 1,629 10 tstore.co.kr 5,792 48.8 54 5.4 10,268 11 tistory.com 5,570 47.0 12 3.5 65,213 12 facebook.com 5,210 43.9 151 9.5 30,623 13 ahnlab.com 5,116 43.1 133 6.1 58 14 cyworld.com 4,569 38.5 95 8.2 32,690 15 olleh.com 4,345 36.6 118 6.9 28,001 Note: Above data is based on Android phone users in January 2012 / Source: Nielsen Koreanclick, KDB Daewoo Securities Research Analysts who prepared this report are registered as research analysts in Korea but not in any other jurisdiction, including the U.S. March 8, 2012 Mobile Internet Internet share prices are correlated with traffic NHNÊs strong share and When analyzing an internet company, one must begin by studying all of the relevant traffic earnings performances data. Indeed, NHNÊs strong share and earnings performances over the past ten years are over the past ten years best explained by the rapid growth of the companyÊs PC internet search page views (see are largely attributable to Figure 1). the rapid growth of its Internet companies need to attract solid traffic in order to generate revenues from their PC internet search page online advertising, e-commerce, and game businesses. Traffic is the most important metric views for assessing the influence of websites and setting ad rates (like viewer ratings in the TV industry). Advertisers are always looking for cost-efficient ways to reach potential consumers, and, as such, they usually only place costly ads on popular sites. So far, NHNÊs growth has been driven by: 1) the success of its new services (e.g., the Knowledge IN service and the game ShinMatgo) and 2) traffic growth resulting from market share expansion at established services. Market share expansion is attributable to: 1) NHNÊs new pricing policies and 2) the companyÊs introduction of new pricing models (e.g., cost-per-click for search ads). NHN has hiked or cut its ad rates in line with market conditions. Since 2003, NHNÊs search business has significantly outperformed those of its competitors on the back of its engineÊs superiority and the huge success of Knowledge IN (launched in October 2002). NHNÊs search serviceÊs page views expanded 42.7% in 2005 and 35.1% in 2006. Market share expansion at the Knowledge IN, online community service, and blog businesses also played a part. In January 2012, NHN recorded a domestic market share of 77.2% (in terms of PC search duration), vs. 16.1% for Daum Communications and 3.0% for SK Communications. Figure 1. NaverÊs PC search traffic growth (in terms of page views) (bnPV) P uptrend: 8 July 2004: Added more CPC CPM → CPT Introduced Q uptrend: Overture's CPC Traffic increased in cafe, blog and mail 6 2004: Strengthened news service 4 Dec 2003: Knowledge Shopping naver.com daum.net yahoo.co.kr google.co.kr Oct 2002: 2 Knowledge IN 0 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 Source: Nielsen Koreanclick, KDB Daewoo Securities Research Daewoo Securities Research 2 March 8, 2012 Mobile Internet Mobile service traffic (apps and websites) Naver and Daum far The January traffic ranking for mobile websites and apps (Android-based smartphones, the surpass their rivals in number of unique visitors) is as follows: 1) Android.com, 2) Kakao.com, 3) Naver.com, 4) terms of page views; Google.com and 5) Daum.net. There was not a big difference between Naver.comÊs (the first rank, 11.57mn) and Daum.netÊs (the fifth rank, 9.14mn) monthly unique visitors. In terms of monthly page views, however, the gap was much wider, with top rankers Naver.com and Daum.net each reporting 2.23bn and 2.07bn page views, while Nate.com, which came in third, posted a meager 690mn page views. In terms of the reach rate (the percentage of smartphone users who accessed the service), Android.com ranked first with a whopping 97.6%, followed by Kakao.comÊs 95.3%, and Naver.comÊs 93.2%. January mobile app traffic confirmed that the top three players - Android.com, Kakao.com and Google.com – were unrivalled in attracting unique visitors. As for mobile website traffic (internet access via web browsers), portal sites Naver and Daum came in first and second, respectively. Table 1. Top Android phone sites and apps (Â000 people, %, min., days, Â000 views) Combined unique Average duration Average Rank Domain Reach rate Page views visitors (R) frequency 1 android.com 11,571 97.6 839 16.1 2,274 2 kakao.com 11,300 95.3 837 18.5 934 3 naver.com 11,056 93.2 396 15.2 2,234,820 4 google.com 10,072 84.9 27 5.6 61,094 5 daum.net 9,147 77.1 241 9.9 2,078,335 6 google.co.kr 7,798 65.8 16 6.3 202,045 7 youtube.com 7,351 62.0 62 3.6 20,572 8 nate.com 7,028 59.3 164 7.1 694,403 9 samsung.com 6,528 55.1 649 18.0 1,629 10 tstore.co.kr 5,792 48.8 54 5.4 10,268 11 tistory.com 5,570 47.0 12 3.5 65,213 12 facebook.com 5,210 43.9 151 9.5 30,623 13 ahnlab.com 5,116 43.1 133 6.1 58 14 cyworld.com 4,569 38.5 95 8.2 32,690 15 olleh.com 4,345 36.6 118 6.9 28,001 Note: Above data is based on Android phone users in January 2012 Source: Nielsen Koreanclick, KDB Daewoo Securities Research Figure 2. Unique visitors and average duration on major mobile domains (mn people) (min.) 12 Combined unique visitors (L) 1000 Average duration (R) 9 750 6 500 3 250 0 0 daum.net nate.com olleh.com naver.com kakao.com tistory.com google.com tstore.co.kr ahnlab.com android.com google.co.kr cyworld.com youtube.com samsung.com facebook.com Source: Nielsen Koreanclick, KDB Daewoo Securities Research KDB Daewoo Securities Research 3 March 8, 2012 Mobile Internet Table 2. Top Android phone apps (Â000 people, %) Rank Domain Unique user Reach rate Usage rate % of Male % of Female 1 android.com 11,568 96.9 97.6 59.0 41.0 2 kakao.com 11,293 94.6 97.3 58.0 42.0 3 google.com 8,625 72.3 73.2 58.8 41.2 4 naver.com 7,807 65.4 82.6 56.5 43.5 5 samsung.com 6,372 53.4 97.7 58.2 41.8 6 tstore.co.kr 5,276 44.2 73.5 60.3 39.7 7 ahnlab.com 5,105 42.8 66.3 59.8 40.2 8 daum.net 5,031 42.2 67.3 56.4 43.6 9 youtube.com 5,006 41.9 43.8 59.2 40.8 10 nate.com 4,455 37.3 54.8 53.1 46.9 11 facebook.com 4,095 34.3 73.9 62.6 37.4 12 sktelecom.com 3,421 28.7 81.6 59.4 40.6 13 olleh.com 3,248 27.2 81.3 55.3 44.7 14 cyworld.com 3,056 25.6 58.4 46.1 53.9 15 madsmart.co.kr 2,963 24.8 87.6 50.1 49.9 Note: Above data is based on Android phone users in January 2012 Source: Nielsen Koreanclick, KDB Daewoo Securities Research Figure 3.