Gogolook to use new Thai HQ to expand within the region
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Gogolook to use new Thai HQ to expand within the region

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Mr Joo, right, and Mr Kuo, centre, who says Gogolook will use Thailand to expand in Southeast Asia.
Mr Joo, right, and Mr Kuo, centre, who says Gogolook will use Thailand to expand in Southeast Asia.

Taiwan's Gogolook, the developer of the Whoscall app, has opened a headquarters in Thailand as part of the company's expansion strategy in Southeast Asia, capitalising on a forecast that the global anti-scam industry will be worth US$129 billion in 2029.

"We selected Thailand for our second headquarters to increase staff here and use the country to expand in Southeast Asia," said Jeff Kuo, co-founder and chief executive of Gogolook.

Senior management will work at both the office in Taiwan and the new office in Thailand, he said.

Thailand will manage the company's global marketing and business development.

The Thai headquarters plans to fill product management and app design positions, while the headquarters in Taiwan remains focused on the development of software programming.

Thailand has a large user base and the country is a base for scam operations, although the private and public sectors are collaborating to conduct anti-scam operations, said Mr Kuo. Thailand also has a geopolitical advantage, he noted.

"With Thailand serving as both a dual headquarters and the Southeast Asia regional hub, we aim to expand our footprint across the region, leading the way in trust-based technology innovations, partnering with stakeholders to fight scams, and contributing to sustainable economic growth."

Mr Kuo said the scams caused major global losses of $1 trillion in 2023, adding that 25% of the world's population had been affected by such scams.

According to GASA's Anti-Scam Asia Report 2024, over 89% of Thai respondents in a survey said they had been exposed to scams every month. Identity theft, shopping scams and fake invoices were among the most common scams in Thailand.

Manwoo Joo, chief executive of Gogolook Thailand, said the head office in Thailand began with one employee before scaling up to 11 at present. It is now located in One Bangkok, having relocated from Samyan Mitrtown.

Next year, 10% of the firm's investment will be allocated to Thailand.

In Thailand, there have been 25 million downloads of the Whoscall app, with 4% of this number being paid subscribers.

Gogolook offers services in 30 countries, with 47% of its revenue being contributed from Taiwan, 46% from East Asia and Southeast Asia, and 7% from other locations.

"We aim to have over half of total revenue from East Asia and Southeast Asia in the near future," said Mr Joo.

"The increase in scams impacts the reputations of enterprises and in some developed markets, such as the UK, South Korea and Taiwan, penalties have started to be enforced on enterprises in cases when users face losses due to a scam. This has driven investment in anti-scam initiatives among enterprise users," he said.

Gogolook acquired ScamAdviser for the purpose of strategic integration to offer a comprehensive range of anti-scam solutions to meet growing demand among businesses for protection against scams across various industries.

In Thailand, Gogolook offers the Whoscall Verified Business Number (VBN) solution to ensure consumers can trust the calls they receive by verifying the authenticity of business numbers. The solution has over 100 corporate customers.

It also provides a fraud early warning system to provide a one-stop service covering monitoring, early warning and protection of potential fraudulent calls or messages, domains, URLs and social media.

Mr Joo said 82% of the company's revenue worldwide comes from consumers, 4% from enterprises and 14% from its fintech service.

"We aim to increase the revenue contribution from enterprises to 10% in 2025," he noted.

Mr Kuo said the proliferation of AI technologies has further exacerbated the situation, resulting in a rise in AI-driven crime involving deep fakes such as identity theft, impersonation scams, and the bypassing of the KYC (Know Your Customer) verification process.

He said the malware wave began in 2013, followed by the dark web wave in 2014, adding that the scam wave began in 2020 during the pandemic. The deep fake wave commenced in 2023.

The demand for scam defence among governments, corporations and consumers drove the overall global anti scam industry market size to $30.7 billion in 2022 and it is expected to surge to $129 billion by 2029.

Moreover, the Anti-Scam Asia Report 2024 revealed that scam-related losses are expected to reach $688 billion across 13 Asian markets this year, as individuals and businesses are experiencing an increasing number of cybercrime threats.

"Scammers are innovating phone, SMS, social media and AI scams, so we need to drive innovation creatively to protect users and embrace AI to fight these scams," said Mr Kuo.

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