Google Surpasses Naver in Domestic Users for First Time... Is the Portal Landscape Shifting?

The expansion of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is bringing changes to the domestic mobile search and portal usage landscape.

Google has surpassed Naver in monthly active users (MAU) for the first time since statistics began to be compiled, and OpenAI's ChatGPT has also secured more than double the number of users compared to Daum, rapidly widening the gap.

As the usage of generative AI services increases—such as Google's AI model Gemini, Google's AI search features, and ChatGPT—observers suggest that user flows in the domestic search and portal market, which were previously centered around Naver and Daum, may be shifting.

According to Mobile Index by the AI tech company IGAWorks today (August 11), Google's app recorded 47,022,854 monthly active users (MAU) last month, ranking first in the overall productivity app category.

This figure is 177,837 higher than that of the second-place Naver app, which had 46,845,017 users.

This is the first time Google has beaten Naver in monthly users since March 2021, when Mobile Index began compiling relevant statistics.

The number of Google app users first surpassed 40 million in May of last year, and broke through 46 million in May of this year.

In June, the gap with Naver narrowed to 245,836, and just one month later, the rankings reversed.

On the other hand, the number of monthly users for the Naver app remained stagnant or showed a slight increase, staying in the 43 million to 46 million range from January 2023 until last month.

In the productivity app user rankings, Google Chrome ranked third with 42,457,506 users.

The industry views that the spread of Google's AI model service Gemini and the enhancement of AI search functions likely influenced the increase in Google app usage.

The upward trend of ChatGPT is also notable.

As of March of last year, its user count was limited to the 5 million range, trailing behind Daum, which recorded the 7.6 million range.

However, its user count surged in April of last year, breaking through the 10 million mark for the first time to surpass Daum, and has continued to widen the gap since then.

Last month, it recorded 16,456,151 monthly users, ranking seventh in productivity app users.

This scale is approximately 2.6 times the 6,307,395 users of the Daum app.

Industry insiders analyze that the increase in Google and ChatGPT users is due to the spread of generative AI usage and the increased utilization of search and conversational AI services.

However, some point out that since Google's surpassing of Naver is a first on a monthly basis and Naver is also continuously upgrading its AI service functions, it is necessary to watch further to see if this trend will continue.

There is still a large gap in the number of ChatGPT users compared to Google and Naver.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.