Korean OTT platform Wavve tops 10 mn subscribers

South Korea’s video streaming platform Wavve continues fast growth, with its paid and unpaid members exceeding 10 million just in one year since its launch, the company said on Monday.

The company has maintained its growth momentum since July thanks to the releases of new original titles and exclusive contents after a brief slump in the first quarter, Wavve CEO Lee Tae-hyun said in a virtual press conference.

Wavve was launched on Sept. 18 last year as a joint venture of SK Telecom and the nation’s three terrestrial broadcasters.

The number of monthly active users (MAU) reached 3.88 million in August, on track to reach the highest record of 4 million in November last year, according to Neilson Korean Click

The company attributed the fast recovery momentum to aggressive investments in original contents, strengthening of movie lineups and exclusive release of foreign-made series.

It plans to release 12 titles by the end of the year including seven dramas, four entertainment shows and one concert. The shows will also be made available in overseas countries.

“We are investing our proceeds back to content production to grow as a platform that can contribute to the growth of Korea’s media content industry,” Lee said. “We will continue to make more aggressive investments next year to meet the expectations of users for our original content.”

Under its service reform project dubbed ‘Elysium,’ Wavve divided its movie category into monthly subscription and one-off payment movies and added children protection function in the first half. It has also strengthened a personal recommendation system and simplified purchasing processes.

“We have established multiple types of deep learning algorithm platforms to optimize the recommendation service, which has resulted in an increase in users,” the company’s platform technology division head Cho Hui-yeol said.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]