On Oct. 15th, a fire Saturday at a Kakao data center caused a server outage for nearly 10 hours in Kakao services that include Kakao Messenger, Kakao Map, Kakao Metro, Kakao Bank, and Kakao-owned music streaming service Melon. This disrupted services for over 53 million users worldwide, including students at SIS. 

“I couldn’t message my friends in our fantasy baseball chat,” Bryan Lee (12), an active Kakao Messenger user, said. “The Kakao server loss unfortunately happened while we were all following a MLB playoff game, and not being able to chat about it live removed some of the excitement.”

By midnight at 2 am on Saturday, Kakaotalk partially regained its services. However, some still struggled to access Kakao apps on their personal computers. 

On Oct. 17th, shares of Kakao Corporations plunged over 9.5 percent on Oct. 17th, leading to a loss of 2 trillion Won (approximately $1.39 billion). Meanwhile, the majority of Katalk services have been restored.

At the same time, LINE, Kakao’s rival messaging service, rose in popularity. People started downloading LINE, becoming one of iPhone’s most downloaded apps on Oct. 17th.