K-Content News
- January 31, 2024 | Music
Significance of Weverse in K-pop entering overseas
Weverse, crafted by HYBE Corporation, stands as a community platform tailored for K-pop enthusiasts. Evolving beyond a mere application for global fandom, Weverse has expanded to encompass diverse commerce functions. Traditionally, K-pop used to enter the global market by using songs, albums, products and concerts., However, with the emergence of Weverse, it has given rise to a new ecosystem, encapsulating the entire global fandom experience. Let’s discuss the significance of Weverse for K-pop’s global market entry.
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As of 2022, Weverse is a large platform that more than 5,000 people from 246 different countries use. The number of posts on Weverse exceeded 330 million, and its sales is sharply rising, recording 239.4 billion won sales in 2021. In 2022, the sales until the third quarter recorded 221.2 billion won and a net profit of 7.8 billion won.
Weverse’s monthly active users in the first quarter of 2023 were 9.36 million people, which continuously increased by 10% for the next two quarters. HYBE is reaching new highest profits every quarter, which also resulted in the increased performance of Weverse as well. Especially, the value of Weverse as a profit model is expected to increase in the second half of 2023. Now, Weverse is not only a platform for K-pop fans, but also a new profit model.
HYBE (formerly BIGHIT MUSIC) achieved worldwide success with BTS but still had a concern. The major profit sources of an entertainment company depend on the sales of the contents, songs and albums, and products. Concerts also play an important role. However, in general, such factors depend on outsourcing. All of the places to purchase albums, reserve concert tickets, consume content, and share the singer’s daily life are different. HYBE needed a place where the fans could continuously accecc content about singers, provide the constant sales of related products, and provide concert reservation. It also needed to collect fan experiences and organize them as a single event. Until now, the general trend in K-pop entertainment has been going through a complicated situation where the fandom information is obtained through the product sales of other companies.
HYBE Jakarta branch ©Shutterstock
Necessity of a platform to combine the fandom experiences
On June 1st, 2019, Weverse Company, an entity affiliated HYBE, introduced Weverse to the public. This platform garnered significant attention upon its release, positioning itself as an all-encompassing services for fandom activity, it received great attention as soon as it was released. Weverse members can subscribe their favorite artists, engaging in various activities. They can access the official content of their artists, including exclusive contents that are not shared on any other social media platforms. Weverse Shop facilitates the purchase of official songs, albums, merchandise, and concert tickets for artists associated with Weverse. Moreover, Weverse Community serves as a space for interactive engagement between the fans and the artists.
Instead of prioritizing service provision, HYBE took the approach of first creating a platform and subsequently incorporating artists to ensure a unified experience for its members. Starting with BTS, Tomorrow X Together and ENHYPEN of HYBE, Weverse includes groups associated with other companies including Weekly, P1Harmony, OH MY GIRL, SUNMI, CL, STAYC, Dreamcatcher, and BLACKPINK. There are overseas artists as well including Gracie Abrams, Jeremy Zucker, Alexander 23, and AKB48, along with actors like Park Bo-young, Kim Seon-ho, Kim Sejeong, etc.
Introduction of the official Weverse application
Winner of the competition between platforms for fans
The strategy employed by Weverse played a pivotal role in its triumph in the competition of fandom platforms. In 2021, NCSOFT launched Universe, but it discontinued the service in 2023 due to an excessive offer to paid subscription, a complex system, and lack of understanding of fandom. Weverse stands out as free platform for anyone worldwide, Even if users are not devoted fans of a specific artist, they can still subscribe, contributing to the platform's success in maintaining over 1.4 million daily visitors. There are many artists that offer open subscription at all times, and the official Weverse concert named Weverse Con Festival on Dec. 31, 2020, have been instrumental in promoting the Weverse brand.
After the successful opening of the fan platform era, Weverse made two important decisions for further development. The first one was the acquisition of Naver V Live in 2021.Naver for the giant live streaming service, which is visited by at least 3,000 users every month. Acquiring a service that was familiar with K-pop fandom made it easy to absorb of live streaming users from Naver.
The second strategy was a collaboration with SM Entertainment. In 2023, HYBE attempted to take over SM Entertainment but ended up giving control to Kakao Entertainment. Instead, HYBE announced a collaboration with SM Entertainment regarding the Weverse service. The artists from SM Entertainment who were previously on SM’s fan platform KWANGYA CLUB joined Weverse. If the 327 artists in the Dear U bubble (provides 1:1 chat with the artists) join Weverse, its scale will increase even more.
Weverse at its initial start
With the goal of creating a new fandom experience, Weverse is constantly evolving. The Weverse Con Festival that took place during June 10~11 2023 at the Olympic Park in Seoul was a place to experience the future of Weverse. The fans who downloaded and joined the Weverse application were able to order 79 different products in 3 domains that are designed with their favorite group’s logo, image, and member’s handwriting. The waiting system at the festival was also interesting. Based on the online system, Weverse users applied to wait at different stands of their choice and bought foods and special products. The number of users for the Weverse waiting system during the two days was over 20,000.
Weverse launched a subscription-based membership service that includes the artists’ handwriting, fan letters, and ad-free programs to expand its potential as a profit model. Since its initial launch, Weverse has been provided various kinds of services to make fans be more familiar with the platform. Now, it is trying to become a major business of the agency based on a new profit model. In March 2023, Weverse introduced its official digital currency called Jelly and started operate a paid Weverse DM service to target the global fandom. The potential value of Weverse is over 3 trillion won.
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Deep consideration for fandom is required
During the process of launching paid services, Weverse faced resistance from fans. After the announcement of the paid services, there were negative responses regarding advertisements and subtitles for live videos. The K-pop fan activities such as purchasing albums reserving and concert tickets are already requiring considerable expenses, so a new strategy that takes into account of the customer’s position must be prepared. Especially, the dynamic global pricing system that applies the fluid pricing of concert tickets has caused severe criticism from global K-pop fans.
The significance of Weverse lies in its role in establishing a new ecosystem that is essential in the K-pop industry. Those responsible for planning and managing the fandom system should understand the devoted mindset of fandoms that sincerely support and love the artists.
Original article: https://www.kocca.kr/n_content/vol28/sub08.html
