Naver to boost overseas sales through 'Fanship'

By Jun Ji-hye

Naver plans to boost its overseas sales through its new global entertainment membership platform featuring live interactive streaming and big data technology, the company said Thursday.

Naver launched its “Fanship” platform through its live video streaming service V Live, Tuesday, saying it offers paid services connecting stars and fans around the world directly.

The company said 85 percent of V Live users are not Korean, and those under 25 years old account for 76 percent.

Fanship, a combination of the words fan and membership, is an online fan club requiring users to pay a membership fee.

To start, Naver opened a Fanship service for four K-pop stars ― Sunmi, Stray Kids, Chung Ha and KARD.

The firm said it plans to expand the range of digital membership to a variety of entertainment content such as web drama series.

The company said it expects communication between stars and fans to expand through the Fanship platform, noting that the new service will also help entertainers and media content creators expand their presence globally.

The firm added the new service will help the entertainment industry unearth new business opportunities.

When joining the Fanship service, special icons symbolizing stars appear on the screen of the app, so users can access the virtual home of their favorite entertainers. Those who have membership can enjoy various premium services such as the pre-order of concert tickets and invitations to off-line events.

In order to help entertainers make successful inroads into the global market, Naver developed “Fanship Studio” and added it to the new service, it said. Fanship Studio is a big data-based tool that helps stars check activities of their global fans and the number of views of content as well as how fans find their way into the stars' virtual homes.

Naver noted that stars in Vietnam and Indonesia will participate in the Fanship platform afterward.

“Through the Fanship platform, we will be able to conduct various cooperative works with global stars,” said Park Sun-young who leads V Live.

Naver designed the paid service based on the upward trajectory of V Live. During a conference call on Jan. 31 after the release of earnings of the fourth quarter 2018, Naver CEO Han Seong-sook said the number of monthly active users of V Live was 29 million, up 40 percent from the previous year.