<Anchor> This is a



friendly economic time. Today (the 4th), I will be with reporter Kim Hye-min. When it comes to Kakao, messenger services are typical, but recently, there seem to be more types of services other than messenger services.



<Reporter>



That's right. Even myself, I use Kakao a lot to send gifts, call a taxi, or drive by proxy.



Also, when exchanging things like cash, in the past, I used to go to a bank app and transfer an account, but now more and more people are sending money to Kakao simply and quickly.



This is because Kakao has greatly expanded its business fields with the national messenger KakaoTalk, and advanced into indoor golf course business, flower delivery, beauty salons, and English education. Currently, there are 118 affiliates of Kakao.



It has the second largest number of domestic companies after SK Group.



When we merged with Daum 7 years ago, there were only 26, which has more than quadrupled during that time.



In particular, Kakao is also the largest conglomerate with the largest number of newly incorporated affiliates as it has added 13 affiliates in the past three months.



As cacao gains weight so quickly, various side effects are also appearing one after another.



<Anchor>



If you look at the management methods of large corporations so far, there are a lot of criticisms about large companies expanding their business scope randomly in the form of octopus expansion. ?



<Reporter>



Of course, Naver is also entering various businesses.



Naver shopping, real estate, and hair salon reservations are typical, but in terms of business numbers, Kakao cannot keep up.



Moreover, Kakao's expansion strategy is controversial.



At first, users are attracted to the service by allowing them to use the service for free, and after that, when the usage rate in the industry rises to a certain extent, a fee is charged from that point on.



A representative example is the taxi call market, which controls 80% of the market with free calls, so we are receiving commissions from taxi drivers and customers.



In particular, the recent increase in both fees has been criticized for being too excessive.



<Anchor>



So, it seems to be a model that takes a profit after securing a dominant position and monopoly position in the market, but what is more worrisome is that it is encroaching on the scope of small businesses?



<Reporter>



Yes, you probably remember the surrogate driving company that became famous for the advertisement 'the front and back are the same phone number'.



It is the No. 1 company in the market share of the agent who makes calls by phone, and this company and Kakao Mobility recently established a joint venture.



In fact, since most of the surrogate driving market still calls a surrogate driver by phone, it is not easy to completely switch to the app calling method.



Kakao Mobility also entered this market in 2016, but has not been able to significantly increase its share so far.



So, it seems that they are trying to expand the method of making phone calls rather than sticking to the method of making calls with the app.



However, as Kakao has grown in size by attracting existing companies, there is a strong backlash from small surrogate drivers.



Existing agency operators claim that "large corporations are threatening the survival of small businesses by putting their enormous capital at the forefront."



However, Kakao explains, "We are trying to build a win-win model by sharing calls with phone call companies." .



<Anchor> In the



end, the Fair Trade Commission is responsible for managing and supervising fair competition between these small businesses and large corporations. Shouldn't the Fair Trade Commission play a more important role?



<Reporter>



So, the Fair Trade Commission is also trying to amend the related laws.



Currently, even if giant platform companies such as Kakao and Naver enter new markets and take over related companies at random, it was difficult for the Fair Trade Commission to control this. .



In fact, it is not only Korea that platform companies are trying to monopolize the market.



The US recognized this problem earlier than Korea.



There are four major platform companies in the United States, Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple. Last year, the US House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee defined these companies as monopolies and issued a recommendation that the company should be split.