BTS Fandom Tech Firm Weverse Reaches Beyond K-pop

Fans hold up cards with pictures on it as they wait for the arrival of Jin, the oldest member of the K-pop band BTS, outside a South Korean army boot camp near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Yeoncheon, South Korea December 13, 2022. REUTERS/Heo Ran/File Photo
Fans hold up cards with pictures on it as they wait for the arrival of Jin, the oldest member of the K-pop band BTS, outside a South Korean army boot camp near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Yeoncheon, South Korea December 13, 2022. REUTERS/Heo Ran/File Photo
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BTS Fandom Tech Firm Weverse Reaches Beyond K-pop

Fans hold up cards with pictures on it as they wait for the arrival of Jin, the oldest member of the K-pop band BTS, outside a South Korean army boot camp near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Yeoncheon, South Korea December 13, 2022. REUTERS/Heo Ran/File Photo
Fans hold up cards with pictures on it as they wait for the arrival of Jin, the oldest member of the K-pop band BTS, outside a South Korean army boot camp near the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Yeoncheon, South Korea December 13, 2022. REUTERS/Heo Ran/File Photo

When Jin became the first member of the K-Pop supergroup BTS to enlist for South Korea's mandatory military service this month, he had a special message to fans on Weverse, a fan platform app that commands more than 8 million active users.

"Now it's curtain call time (I wanted to say this when I go to military service)," said Jin. Devoted fans posted more than 10,000 replies.

The Weverse platform has proven a major weapon of the K-Pop group's agency HYBE Co Ltd (352820.KS), offering fan-oriented experiences interacting with the stars, accessing unique content and buying merchandise, and is now expanding into subscription services and more.

"We are a fandom business," Weverse President Joon Choi told Reuters. "There are bigger global services offering functions we offer, but Weverse's users are superfans characterized by passionate engagement."

Before Weverse launched in 2019 fans were scattered across multiple platforms, said Choi, Reuters reported.

"They bought merch here, watched videos there, communicated elsewhere... We didn't have a database of our customers. So we began developing each service in-house."

The K-Pop industry has revolved around loyalty and personal identification with the stars, making it a "recession-proof" business - revenue is driven by public response to artists' activities, and upselling is possible, analysts said.

However, HYBE is now uniquely positioned to harness such a loyal fandom to grow its global business through unit Weverse's technological reach, offering a growth model for future entertainment, analysts said.

Around 170 out of 300 Weverse employees are engineers including programmers and UX specialists, Choi said, with veterans from gaming companies or local tech giant Naver (035420.KS) with whom it has a partnership.

The app also currently has more than 80 teams of artists represented including BTS, and about 8-9 million monthly active users. It also has a high number of repeat visitors and retention - peak daily active users can number about 6 million.

Non-HYBE artists are also on the platform, including rival agency YG's (122870.KQ) top girl group Blackpink, and it is expected to see the number of artists - and fandoms - grow to 100 soon.

More U.S. and Japanese artists are expected to join next year, said Choi but declined to reveal who.

HYBE acquired Ithaca Holdings, representing Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, in a $1.05 billion deal in 2021.

Choi, who worked at gaming company Nexon and "Baby Shark" content creator Pinkfong before joining Weverse, says the app has added services such as live streaming, Instagram Story-style updates, free and paid content, artist-to-fan interactions and merchandise retailing.

However, Weverse users' 'superfan' qualities make engagement in those services turbo-charged, Choi said.

"For example, we do commerce, but there is no seasonality... We have 80 teams of artists, and some of them are always doing something," he said.

Like K-Pop's popularity, the app is also global. Users are based in more than 200 countries and only about 10% of the app users speak Korean, Choi said. Top 5 countries Weverse users are from include Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, the United States and South Korea.

"There is no other entertainment agency with such a fan platform with enough users for economy of scale," said Lee Hye-in, analyst at Yuanta Securities.

"Such a centralised platform was possible because in K-Pop, the agency holds the hegemony - whereas in the U.S. for example, the artists are the centre."



Wax Lyrical: Taylor Swift Gets Lucky 13 Madame Tussauds Statues

The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File
The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File
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Wax Lyrical: Taylor Swift Gets Lucky 13 Madame Tussauds Statues

The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File
The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File

US pop megastar Taylor Swift will be honored with 13 waxworks of her at Madame Tussauds venues around the globe, the museum said on Wednesday.

In honor of Swift's lucky number, 13 of the waxwork museum's 22 branches will each receive a statue of the "Love Story" and "Blank Space" singer, in what it called the "most ambitious project" of its 250-year history.

The statues were inspired by some of the 35-year-old songwriting sensation's looks from her record-shattering "Eras Tour" from 2023 to 2024, AFP said.

With 149 shows across the world over nearly two years, the tour raked in $2 billion, making it the most lucrative in music history to date.

More than 40 artists worked for more than a year on the statues of Swift, one of the most acclaimed artists of her generation with 14 Grammy Awards.

"This is the most ambitious project in Madame Tussauds' 250-year history, which only feels right to reflect the stratospheric status of Taylor Swift," said Danielle Cullen, the museum's senior figure stylist.

UK-based Swifties are well served, with one waxwork slated for London and another for the northern seaside resort town of Blackpool.

Another 10 will find a permanent home at the branches of Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Nashville, New York, Orlando and Sydney.

The thirteenth statue, which will travel around the remaining museums, will begin its worldwide walkabout with a residency at Madame Tussauds Shanghai.