Pandora Sees Hope in Global Launch

By Cho Jin-seo

Staff Reporter

In Greek mythology, Pandora, the first woman on earth, opened a heavenly jar that released all the evils of mankind. There was one thing left on the bottom of the jar when she hastened to close it, which was Hope.

For Pandora TV, the largest video-sharing Web service in Korea, its hopes look like they may become reality. The company is to launch the ``global'' site on April 4 in four languages ― Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese. It believes that the expansion will make the company the first profit-making video-sharing site in the world, a feat that even YouTube couldn't achieve.

``Everything is ready for the global service. It is time to contest in the world market,'' said Kim Kyung-ik, its CEO. ``With the know-how that could satisfy picky Korean users, we will be able to draw big attention from the global audience.''

Pandora has only seen losses since it started the video-sharing service in October 2004, about four months before YouTube was launched in California. The company had around 10 billion won in advertisement sales and hopes that the global service will attract more sales from foreign advertisers and help it reach the break-even point for the first time, said its public relations manager Kim Gwang-hee.

The firm's size is nothing compared to that of portal operators such as NHN, Daum Communications and SK Communications, but its overseas expansion plan is receiving a big spotlight in contrast with the big firms' passive strategies. With the exception of a few game companies such as Nexon and NCsoft, almost all Korean Internet companies have failed in the foreign market, especially in Western countries.

Last week, SK Communications pulled its Cyworld social-networking service out of Europe after only four months of service. As Pandora preceded YouTube, Cyworld was considered the pioneer of the online diary-sharing service field, way before Facebook and MySpace appeared. The company cited cultural and language differences for the early pullout decision.

Pandora says that it is committed not to repeating the failures of the big portals and will not open overseas offices. Instead, the company will only operate computer servers in Japan, which will provide faster video-playing speed for foreign users than servers in Korea, the PR official Kim said.

``Setting up overseas subsidiaries may be important, but our global service is focused on how to reflect the unique cultures and characteristics of local users,'' CEO Kim said. ``We will have differentiated strategies to compete with YouTube, and keep the pride of Korea's IT industry.''

Though the firm's global presence is meager compared to that of YouTube, it is by far the strongest in Korea. Pandora TV has an average page view rate of some 20 million, while YouTube's Korean service has 2 million, according to Rankey.com, a Web consultancy.

Such popularity, however, is not directly related to profits. The company didn't disclose its loss from last year, but some analysts estimated that it had around 2 billion won of operating loss in 2006 out of 3 billion won in sales. For this year, too, there is no announced sure-fire plan to bring a fortune despite the launch of the global service. The hope is still lying in the bottom of the jar.

indizio@koreatimes.co.kr