[Photo provided by Naver Corp.]

<이미지를 클릭하시면 크게 보실 수 있습니다>

South Korea’s top internet portal Naver Corp. maintained its leadership in the local social media market in December despite strong competition from global social media giants Instagram and Facebook thanks to popularity of its challenge campaign.

According to local market research firm Nielsen Koreanclick on Sunday, Naver’s social network platform Band ranked as the most popular social media app with a total of 19.48 million users in Korea last month. Second most used social media app by Koreans was Instagram with 15.23 million users, followed by Facebook with 13.88 million users. The tally combined Android and Apple phone users.

Naver’s Band also showed the sharpest growth in the number of new users, adding 12.6 million in just seven months.

The internet giant attributed Band’s strong performance to its challenge campaign, which allows users to set personal goals such as working out daily and share their progress with others. The challenge campaign was launched in July and since then nearly 27,000 users have signed up.

The company said its challenge campaign also helped it attract young users. Nearly half of users participating in Band’s challenge campaign are aged 39 years or younger. This is compared to the overall age demographics for Band – 35 percent aged below 40 years, 54 percent in 40s or 50s, and 11 percent aged 60 years and older.

The users in 20s and 30s tend to show strong interest in self-development and like building connection with others who share personal interest, and such trend was also seen among Band’s users, said a Naver official.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]