South Korean portal site giant Daum faces declining market share

Daum, which once dominated the Korean Internet market, is now facing a declining market share. In particular, its share of domestic search results has fallen below 4%.
The number of users has been declining, and as a result, its influence as a portal site has declined, and today its presence is fading.
According to the blog analysis site Internet Trends on the 7th, Daum's domestic search share will be 3
It was 4.72% in January, 4.71% in February, and 4.60% in March. In contrast, Naver was 56.18%, Google was 4.72%.
Daum has been steadily growing with a market share of 35.76%. Before its merger with Kakao, Daum boasted a market share of 20% or so, but there are now concerns that it may withdraw from the market.
Last year, Kakao separated Daum as an internally independent company (CIC). This means that the company is kept within the company but is managed independently.
For Kakao, Daum is like a chicken rib (not enough meat to eat, but too good to throw away).
Daum has been facing a number of controversies over its left-leaning nature, including its news exposure algorithm, related comments, and the operation of Agora.
The company has been at odds with political rights. The dual pressures of rising operating costs and declining revenues have led some in the industry to question Daum's future and suggest it has no choice but to split off.
Founded in 1995 by Lee Jae Woo, Daum offers a free email service (Hanmail), a community service (Daum Cafe), a search service, etc.
Based on this foundation, it was a pioneer and the strongest player in the portal industry until the early 2000s. However, it later lost market share to Naver and Google, which put "intellectuals" at the forefront.
It fell into a slump and was acquired by Kakao in 2014. When Daum's name was changed to Kakao in 2015, Lee commented, "It seems like this fun experiment has come to an end."
Kakao plans to streamline its less competitive businesses, but finding a buyer for Daum is not an easy task. If Daum leaves Kakao, it will be virtually impossible for it to survive.
Experts predict that Daum, like other portal sites, will not be able to survive easily due to the strong monopoly of Naver and Google.