Seoul, April 9 (IANS) KakaoTalk, South Korea's leading mobile messenger, saw its number of users fall below 45 million for the first time in 22 months last month, data showed on Tuesday.

The application had 44.97 million monthly active users (MAUs) in March, down more than 221,000 from the previous month, according to the mobile index data from industry tracker IGAWorks.

It marks the first time that KakaoTalk's MAU has dropped below the 45 million mark since May 2022, reports Yonhap news agency.

The March tally was also sharply down from the highest of 47.07 million recorded in April last year.

The mobile messenger had long been the most-used mobile platform in South Korea but lost the top spot to global streaming giant YouTube in December.

At the time, YouTube had 45.65 million MAUs, while KakaoTalk had 104,980 fewer MAUs at 45.56 million, according to IGAWorks.

Last month, the gap widened to 543,152 as YouTube garnered more users than the Korean chat app.

Data also showed that KakaoTalk's share among users of social media platforms dropped 2.6 percentage points on-year to 39.62 per cent last month, while the corresponding tally for Instagram grew 4.61 percentage points to 22.77 per cent.