Twitch plans to shut down in Korea over high network costs
U.S. live streaming video platform Twitch logo application is on the screen of a tablet, July 24, 2019. AFP-Yonhap
Twitch, a popular U.S.-based live game streaming platform, said Wednesday it plans to shut down its Korean service in February next year due to high network usage fees in the country.
In an announcement posted on its corporate blog, Twitch Interactive CEO Dan Clancy said the company "made the difficult decision to shut down the Twitch business in Korea on Feb. 27, 2024."
Clancy said the cost to operate Twitch in Korea was "prohibitively expensive" and said the company spent significant effort, such as adjusting the video quality on the service, to reduce business costs.
"While we have lowered costs from these efforts, our network fees in Korea are still 10 times more expensive than in most other countries," Clancy said.
He stressed that Twitch has been operating at a significant loss and that the company sees "no pathway forward for our business to run more sustainably" in Korea.
In November last year, the platform suspended its video-on-demand service in Korea, seen as a protest against the country's controversial network usage fee.
The announcement marks that latest development in an ongoing controversy over network usage fees among global platforms, such as Netflix, in Korea.
Local internet service providers have accused foreign services of causing traffic disruptions on their networks and demanded they pay added network usage costs. (Yonhap)