Melon/Kakao Music
Kakao M Corp. is a subsidiary of Kakao, a major South Korean Internet company that was established in 2014. Kakao was formed as a result of a merger between Daum Communications, a top 3 Korean webportal, and Kakao. Kakao is the company behind the popular app KakaoTalk, a free mobile instant messaging application for smartphones with free text and free call features. It is the biggest messaging service in South Korea, used by an estimated 93 percent of smartphone users in the country, with 220 million registered users and 49 million active monthly users worldwide. In January 2016, Kakao acquired a 76.4% stake in LOEN Entertainment and rebranded the company as ‘Kakao M’.
MelON is a music and music video download and streaming service launched in November 2004 by SK Telecom, Korea’s largest telco. It was one of the very first digital music services launched, well before Spotify. MelON currently is South Korea’s leading music platform with a market share of 58%. According to a 2013 report by MIDiA Consulting, it was the very first subscription service in the world to have 1 million paying customers. In March 2018 the service has 5.7m monthly active users.The name ‘MelON’ is an acronym of the phrase melody on. According to Midia Research MeLON belonged to global top 10 of most popular music subscription services during H1 2018, responsible for 2% of the total amount of music subscriptions globally. MeLON provides a wide range of different paid services; a la carte music and video downloads, download subscriptions, a la carte streaming, streaming subscriptions, streaming and download bundles, various types of ringback tones and karaoke.
Music distribution to Melon/Kakao is available on VerseOne Distribution.