Math app Qanda enjoys surge in popularity with 74 mn subscribers

The number of subscribers to the mathematics education app Qanda exceeded 74 million as of earlier this month. 

It is rare for an app developed by a South Korean startup to have more subscribers than the country’s population – a testament to how popular the app is outside of the peninsula. 

Edutech startup Mathpresso Inc. developed Qanda, an artificial intelligence-based learning platform, releasing it in January 2016. 

As of last week, more than 74.2 million people had subscribed to the app, a whopping 20 million jump from the same time last year. 

The app uses optical character recognition technology to scan math problems and provide step-by-step solutions. In other words, the app offers customized content to a user scanning math problems with his or her phone camera.

The rapid rise of Qanda's popularity around the world is largely thanks to mathematics being free from language barriers. Its success can also be partly attributed to the increase in online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Just two years after its release the app was available in neighboring Japan and is currently available in more than 50 countries. 

Non-Koreans account for 87% of the total subscribers.

Qanda is especially popular in Southeast Asia, with the monthly active user (MAU) count surpassing 4.7 million in Vietnam alone. 

The figure is higher than that of Grab, the region’s super app specializing in hailing taxis and deliveries. 

In Indonesia, the app’s MOU exceeds 4 million. 

Compared to more industrialized regions, students in Southeast Asia cannot find tutors easily when they are faced with challenging math problems. 

In South Korea, only a handful of tech giants operate apps that have more than 70 million subscribers, namely: Naver Corp. with LINE, Zepeto, Band and SNOW; Kakao Corp. with KakaoTalk; and Krafton Inc. with PUBG: Battlegrounds.

Write to Joo-Wan Kim at kjwan@hankyung.com
Jee Abbey Lee edited this article.