KakaoTalk and LINE have been spending huge amounts of money on marketing trying to acquire marketshare in Indonesia, according to Re/code
As Indonesia continues to heat up as a major technology market and more of its 250+ million population comes online, social networking app Path, a direct competitor to Facebook, is starting to get more attention.
A report by re/code citing sources familiar with the deal claims the company is “in serious talks to sell its original social networking app, known as Path Classic, to the makers of South Korean messaging app KakaoTalk”.
A Daum Kakao spokesperson reportedly declined to comment.
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Path claims to have 30 million active users, many of whom are in Indonesia. Re/code pointed out: “Nearly five years after it first released its private small-group social network app, Path has now reoriented itself as a sort of app studio, adding a messaging spin-off called Path Talk (that also allows people to message businesses), and a selfie GIF app called Kong, which was released just last week”.
The app has raised more than US$75 million in funding to date, and reports surfaced in 2011 that Google had tried to buy it for US$100 million, but had been declined.
Re/code stated, “KakaoTalk and LINE have both been spending enormous amounts of money on marketing — thought to be tens of millions of dollars — on trying to acquire marketshare in Indonesia”.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates soon.
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