Google’s app has overtaken Naver in South Korea’s monthly active users (MAU) for the first time. Analysts suggest the proliferation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally shaking up the country’s mobile platform landscape.
According to MobileIndex, a data platform operated by AI tech firm IGAWorks, Google’s app recorded 47,022,854 MAUs in July, ranking first among all productivity apps. Naver’s app fell to second place with 46,845,017 users. The gap between the two apps stands at approximately 177,837 users.
This marks the first time Google has surpassed Naver in monthly users since MobileIndex began compiling related statistics in March 2021. Google’s app users first exceeded 40 million in May last year and broke through the 46 million mark in May this year, demonstrating steep growth. Notably, after narrowing the gap with Naver to roughly 245,836 users in June, it managed to flip the rankings in just one month.
In contrast, Naver’s app has shown a relatively stagnant trend, with MAUs fluctuating between 43 million and 46 million from January 2023 to last month. Google Chrome secured third place among productivity apps with 42,457,506 MAUs.
Industry observers point to the spread of AI services as the primary driver behind Google’s user growth. The analysis suggests that Google’s expansion of its proprietary AI model ‘Gemini’ and the integration of AI features into its search services likely contributed to the increase in app users.
The surge of generative AI services is also evident in the user trends for OpenAI’s ChatGPT. ChatGPT recorded 16,456,151 MAUs last month, ranking seventh among productivity apps. This is roughly 2.6 times the 6,307,395 users of Daum, one of South Korea’s major web portals.
ChatGPT’s growth trajectory is even more impressive. As recently as March last year, ChatGPT’s MAU hovered in the 5 million range, trailing behind Daum, which had around 7.6 million users at the time. However, in April last year, its user base skyrocketed to the 10 million range, surpassing Daum for the first time, and the gap has widened rapidly since then.
Experts diagnose that this shift goes beyond mere app preference, indicating a fundamental change in how users seek information. A growing number of users are moving away from traditional keyword-based searches and turning to conversational AI and AI-driven search to obtain information. ChatGPT is also rapidly expanding its domestic user base by establishing itself as an information retrieval tool, not just a simple chat service.
However, some caution that it is premature to conclude that the leadership of South Korea’s search market has completely changed based on these figures alone. Since Google’s lead over Naver has occurred on a monthly basis for the first time, further observation is needed to determine whether this ranking change is a temporary phenomenon or a structural trend. Naver is also continuously upgrading its AI search and generative AI capabilities in response. Furthermore, while ChatGPT’s user base is growing rapidly, the absolute gap with the two giant platforms, Google and Naver, remains substantial.