South Korea’s top mobile chat platform operator Kakao Corp. is mulling public offering on the Tokyo stock exchange in 2020, according to media report.

Kospi-listed Kakao said nothing has been decided. Kakao closed Monday in Seoul 2.05 percent lower at 119,500 won.

The explosive response to its webcomic app Piccoma released in Japan in April has led the company to consider going public in Japan, according to Bloomberg report.

Piccoma app charges viewership per chapter instead per book, making its content more price-appealing. It beat Japanese online publishers and a webcomic page run by Naver in download and subscription rate over the last three months.

Kakao is worth $7.4 billion on the Korean bourse as most of the Korean population is connected to the chat platform for daily communication. It, however, has performed pitifully in overseas.

It entered Japan in 2012, but so far has not been successful. It since has been targeting the Japanese comics market which generates revenue of $4 billion a year.

By Oh Chan-jong

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