SEOUL, Dec 23 (Reuters) – When Jin grew to become the primary member of Okay-Pop supergroup BTS to enlist for South Korea’s necessary navy service this month, he had a particular message to followers on Weverse, a fan platform app that instructions greater than 8 million energetic customers.
“Now it is curtain name time (I needed to say this after I go to navy service),” mentioned Jin. Devoted followers posted greater than 10,000 replies.
The Weverse platform has confirmed a serious weapon for the Okay-Pop group’s company, HYBE Co Ltd (352820.KS), providing fan-oriented experiences interacting with the celebs, accessing distinctive content material and shopping for merchandise. It’s now increasing into subscription companies and extra.
“We’re a fandom enterprise,” Weverse President Joon Choi instructed Reuters. “There are greater world companies providing features we provide, however Weverse’s customers are superfans characterised by passionate engagement.”
Earlier than Weverse launched in 2019, HYBE artists’ followers had been scattered throughout a number of platforms, mentioned Choi.
“They purchased merch right here, watched movies there, communicated elsewhere… We did not have a database of our clients. So we started creating every service in-house.”
The Okay-Pop trade has revolved round loyalty and private identification with the celebs, serving to to cushion it towards the influence of financial downturns. Income is pushed by public response to artists’ actions, and upselling is feasible, analysts mentioned.
HYBE is now uniquely positioned to harness such a loyal fan base to develop its world enterprise by unit Weverse’s technological attain, providing a development mannequin for future leisure, analysts mentioned.
Round 170 out of 300 Weverse workers are engineers together with programmers and UX specialists, Choi mentioned, with veterans from gaming corporations or native tech big Naver (035420.KS) with which it has a partnership.
The app has about 80 groups of artists represented together with BTS, and about 8-9 million month-to-month energetic customers. It additionally has a excessive variety of repeat guests and retention.
Non-HYBE artists are additionally on the platform, together with rival company YG’s (122870.KQ) high woman group Blackpink.
Extra U.S. and Japanese artists are anticipated to hitch subsequent yr, mentioned Choi, declining to disclose who.
HYBE acquired Ithaca Holdings, representing Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, in a $1.05 billion deal in 2021.
Choi, who labored at gaming firm Nexon and “Child Shark” content material creator Pinkfong earlier than becoming a member of Weverse, says the app has added companies similar to dwell streaming, Instagram Story-style updates, free and paid content material, artist-to-fan interactions and merchandise retailing.
Weverse customers’ ‘superfan’ qualities make engagement in these companies turbo-charged.
“For instance, we do commerce, however there is no such thing as a seasonality… We now have 80 groups of artists, and a few of them are at all times doing one thing,” he mentioned.
App customers are based mostly in additional than 200 nations, notably Japan and the US, and solely about 10% communicate Korean, Choi mentioned.
“There isn’t a different leisure company with such a fan platform with sufficient customers for economic system of scale,” mentioned Lee Hye-in, analyst at Yuanta Securities. “…In Okay-Pop, the company holds the hegemony.”
Shares in HYBE closed flat on Friday. They’ve risen about 64% from an all-time low hit in October.
Reporting by Joyce Lee; Modifying by Michael Perry
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