Архив метки: South Korean

Google halts KakaoTalk updates on Play Store in Korea after messaging app refused to remove its own payment links 

Google has stopped providing updates to popular messaging app KakaoTalk in South Korea, according to a local report, after Kakao continued using an external payment link in its Android app, against Google’s new in-app payments policy. Google’s new policy requires developers selling digital goods and services to use Google’s first-party billing system, but Kakao has been using an external link to its own website.
This is the first time Google has stopped PlayStore users from updating an app after its new payments policy went into effect last month. KakaoTalk can be updated on other app operators such as Apple’s AppStore and OneStore, per the local media report. Two big questions now will be whether Google turns its attention to stopping updates on other apps similarly providing external payment links, or goes one step further and proceeds to remove them altogether.
“All developers selling digital goods and services in their apps are required to use Google Play’s billing system,” Google writes in a note detailing its new in-app payments policy. “Apps using an alternative in-app billing system will need to remove it in order to comply with the payments policy… Starting June 1, 2022, any app that is still not compliant will be removed from Google Play.” 
Google said last year it would comply with alternative billing systems in South Korea by allowing Android app developers to use third-party payment options, but to offer them alongside Google Play’s own billing system after the country passed its in-app payment law — the first of its kind in the world — in August last year. That law, pointedly, is regularly referred to as the “anti-Google law.”
Developers, however, can’t add links that point to their own websites inside their apps, which would allow their users to buy directly, bypassing Google’s billing entirely.
South Korean app developers and content providers have increased their paid subscription and service fees on Google’s Play due to the heavy 15-30% commissions now required following Google’s policy changes. 

South Korean content providers raise service fees in the wake of Google’s in-app payment policy

The Korea Communications Commission said in April that the prohibition of app developers from using the weblink payment option would breach South Korea’s app payment law that requires operators of app stores to allow third-party payments. The KCC told TechCrunch last month that it would keep an eye on Google to see if they would remove any app against its new policy. 
Apple announced last week that developers will have to submit a separate binary for iOS and iPadOS “distributed solely on the App Store in South Korea” to use a third-party payment system for the South Korea App Store.
TechCrunch has reached out to Kakao, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Google’s move. Google did not respond to requests for comment.
Google halts KakaoTalk updates on Play Store in Korea after messaging app refused to remove its own payment links 

DoubleDown is going public: Why isn’t its IPO worth more?

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Agora isn’t the only company headquartered outside the United States aiming to go public domestically this quarter. After catching up on Agora’s F-1 filing, the China-and-U.S.-based, API-powered tech company that went public last week, today we’re parsing DoubleDown Interactive’s IPO document.
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The mobile gaming company is targeting the NASDAQ and wants to trade under the ticker symbol “DDI.”
As with Agora, DoubleDown filed an F-1, instead of an S-1. That’s because it’s based in South Korea, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. DoubleDown was founded in Seattle, according to Crunchbase, before selling itself to DoubleU Games, which is based in South Korea. So, yes, the company is filing an F-1 and will remain majority-held by its South Korean parent company post-IPO, but this offering is more a local affair than it might at first seem.
Even more, with a $17 to $19 per-share IPO price range, the company could be worth up to nearly $1 billion when it debuts. Does that pricing make sense? We want to find out.
So let’s quickly explore the company this morning. We’ll see what this mobile, social gaming company looks like under the hood in an effort to understand why it is being sent to the public markets right now. Let’s go!
Fundamentals
Any gaming company has to have its fun-damentals in place so that it can have solid financial results, right? Right?
Anyway, DoubleDown is a nicely profitable company. In 2019 its revenue only grew a hair to $273.6 million from $266.9 million the year before (a mere 2.5% gain), but the company’s net income rose from $25.1 million to $36.3 million, and its adjusted EBITDA rose from $85.1 million to $101.7 million over the same period.

DoubleDown is going public: Why isn’t its IPO worth more?

Samsung invests $500M to set up a smartphone display plant in India

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Samsung, which once led India’s smartphone market, is investing $500 million in its India operations to set up a manufacturing plant at the outskirts of New Delhi to produce displays.
The company disclosed the investment and its plan in a filing to the local regulator earlier this month. The South Korean giant said the plant would produce displays for smartphones as well as a wide-range of other electronics devices.
In the filing, the company disclosed that it has allocated some land area from its existing factory in Noida for the new plant.
In 2018, Samsung opened a factory in Noida that it claimed was the world’s largest mobile manufacturing plant. For that factory, the company had committed to spend about $700 million.
The new plant should help Samsung further increase its capacity to produce smartphone components locally and access a range of tax benefits that New Delhi offers.
Those benefits would come in handy to the company as it faces off Xiaomi, the Chinese smartphone vendor that put an end to Samsung’s lead in India.
Samsung is now the second largest smartphone player in India, which is the world’s second largest market with nearly 500 million smartphone users. The company in recent months has also lost market share to Chinese brand Realme, which is poised to take over the South Korean giant in the quarter that ended in December last year, according to some analysts.
TechCrunch has reached out to Samsung for comment.

Samsung invests $500M to set up a smartphone display plant in India