Korean mobile messenger service Kakao Talk said it would bring its mobile launcher called Kakao Home to the global market.

“The launcher business has a lot of potential so many firms are jumping into the market. Kakao Home will also be serviced in English for global users by October,” said an official from the messenger firm.

Currently, a limited range of Kakao Home services in the English language are available in Korea but the official said the firm would soon release a better one for the world market.

Simply put, a launcher is putting a new skin on a smartphone operating system.

Those in their 20s or 30s who want some changes in user interface, new smartphone backgrounds, customized services and easy access social networks are the main user base.

Industry watchers say the market for launchers is rapidly growing as service providers can offer additional mobile services through the launchers.

With Kakao Home, users can easily send messages through the Kakao Talk application, from an icon docked at the bottom of the screen, and some existing applications are donned with unique designs and the messenger’s signature color yellow.

More than 100 themes for the background image and UI designs are available, and users can create their own theme.

Kakao Home users can check all feeds from Kakao Talk and Kakao Story, and Kakao Game on the first page of the screen.

A snooze widget stops Kakao message notifications for up to eight hours and a memory usage indicator helps a user easily end running applications to save memory.

Although the future is bright for the mobile launcher, obstacles still lie ahead.

Around 16 percent of 700 respondents in a survey answered they used one of launcher in the market at the time while 31 percent said they had ever used one of the services in the preceding year, according to marketing firm DMC Media.

Performance slowdown (23 percent) was the biggest reason why smartphone users shunned using a launcher, followed by inconvenience of installation (22 percent), and interference with the existing operating system (14 percent), according to the DMC in May.

Competition with other launcher services including Go Launcher, Dodol Launcher and Facebook Home, which started a similar service earlier than the Korean messenger firm is another obstacle that Kakao Home needs to overcome to increase presence in the market.

Go Launcher, which was launched in 2012, and Dodol Launcher, developed by Web portal Naver’s affiliate Camp Mobile, accounted respectively for 45 percent and 34 percent of the domestic market, according to the marketing firm.

Camp Mobile started its English service in April.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)