Korean IT company Union Mobile (CEO Lee Hee-seung) is challenging Cambodia's mobile life platform business. UnionMobile, which has been developing the 'Angkor Chat' messenger in close consultation with Cambodian government departments since two years ago, recently expanded 'Angkor Chat' into 'Angkor Life', a comprehensive mobile platform that combines community, shopping, and content in a messenger, and began full-scale service.

UnionMobile held a launch event for 'Angkor Life' in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, on the 22nd. The event was attended by senior Cambodian government officials, including Om Yentieng, Chairman of the National Anti-Corruption Committee, and Mur Chharya, Deputy Minister of Post and Telecommunications, as well as Korean and Cambodian industry representatives, demonstrating the high expectations for 'Angkor Life' in the country.

On the morning of the launch event, we met with UnionMobile Cambodia CEO Lee Hee-seung at UnionMobile's office in Phnom Penh. Lee, an IT veteran with many years of experience at LG Group, shared his ambition to change the lives of not only Cambodians but also foreign tourists visiting Cambodia for the better through 'Angkor Life'.

“'Angkor Life' is being made 100% for Cambodians. We're putting a lot of effort into thorough localization. Many people might ask why we don't go overseas if KakaoTalk is the best in Korea, but it's really hard to localize in one country. We don't know everything about Cambodia. We study the history and try to take into account the local sentiment, but it's hard to understand 100%, but we'll do our best.”

Cambodia's official language is Khmer. Messengers and mobile apps from global tech companies rarely support Khmer. With full Khmer support, 'Angkor Life' is more likely to be welcomed by the local market.

The name and logo of the app are also familiar to locals. The name 'Angkor' is taken from the 'Angkor Dynasty' that built the most powerful empire in Cambodia's history, and the logo is made in the shape of the Lom Dul flower, the national flower of Cambodia. “We will localize 'Angkor Life' as completely as possible and make it a service that Cambodians can feel attached to and even inspire patriotism,” said Lee.

For platform services, localization is important, but it's not a guarantee of success. It is important to provide basic functions and various services reliably. Hee-seung Lee is confident that the basic features of Angkor Life are comparable to apps from global giants. “The voice stock and voice messaging features, which are the most popular messenger features in the local market, are recognized as having better sound quality than competitors' products. To improve the service in low-speed network environments, our domestic technicians traveled to Cambodia to conduct various tests. With the best features and perfect localization, we are confident that 'Angkor Life' will be well established in the local market.”

Union Mobile will offer a wide range of services through Angkor Life, including messaging, shopping, payment, streaming (OTT), games, delivery, taxi hailing, booking, and more. The company aims to solve many of the needs of everyday life with 'Encore Life'.

“For shopping, we will provide an open market platform. We are not only thinking about B2C but also B2B. For games, webtoons, and delivery platforms, we are discussing collaboration with several partners. Through OTT services, we will make it convenient to view excellent Cambodian content and Korean K-content anytime, anywhere. In the case of taxi hailing, we will have to compete with strong players such as Grab, which will not be easy, but we will prepare hard.”

After the local launch of 'Angkor Life', Union Mobile plans to expand its user pool through various promotions. Instead of investing in large-scale marketing expenditures, the company will expand its industry-academia cooperation model and appeal to the strengths of 'Angkor Life' locally. “We plan to build a high-speed wireless internet network at Cambodian universities so that students can use all the features of 'Angkor Life' in a comfortable environment,” said Lee. ”We also plan to organize a course program to recruit talented people from Cambodian universities.” “We also have local-friendly marketing plans, such as Angkor Life's participation in the 'Miss World University' referendum,” he added.

Lee spoke highly of the Cambodian market, saying it “may be a bigger market than it's realized.” “Cambodia is known to have a small population of 17 million and an economy that is not as large as its neighbors, but its mobile payment volume last year was about $290 billion, which is not much different from other Southeast Asian countries,” he said. Domestic commercial banks have also entered Cambodia in large numbers, and I think it is because they first grasped the potential of the Cambodian market.”

Finally, Mr. Lee expressed his hope that many Cambodians will become wealthy through 'Angkor Life'. “I came to Cambodia for work, but now I love the country. Big data is becoming increasingly important these days, and all the data of 'Angkor Life' is stored in Cambodia. Just like building a network of roads and other infrastructure, we have created a platform that is 100% for Cambodians.” ”We want Cambodians to do business, communicate with each other, and get rich. We want to contribute to Cambodia in many ways through Angkor Life.”