[시그널] Is it over when you join BTS?… Season 2 of Hive armed with artists, platforms, and goods

Justin Bieber was acquired by Ithaca Holdings Group 1… Launched Universal Music and Global Boy Group

Securing platform competitiveness such as the introduction of Black Pink through the acquisition of Naver V Live and YG investment

Fandom revenue recognized by the global… Increase technology-based experience through investments in Kiswi and Superton

Hive (Big Hit), who was aiming to become a platform company at the time of listing on KOSPI, is delivering results through investments across borders and industries. As if trying to dispel the investment industry that’after the BTS (BTS) is uneasy’, it secured domestic and foreign artists with over 1 trillion won in acquisitions, and started fostering global labels and new boy groups. It is a movement to secure intellectual property rights (IP) for the platform to continue.

10 years ago, when they were small and medium-sized agencies, those who expected that fandoms would lead to purchasing goods (artist-based on-line products) earned profits by putting artists on their platform, Weverse. Hive’s operating profit was 142.4 billion won last year, up 44.3% from the previous year.

Furthermore, in order to expand into the’Metaverse’, which allows artists to experience the artist in a virtual space, it is investing in all directions, such as joining hands with global technology companies.

Hive, which started as an overseas fandom, surprised the market by buying large overseas labels at all. Hive announced on the 2nd that it acquired a 100% stake in Ithaca Holdings, a famous American label, for 1.18 trillion won. Ithaca Holdings, led by Scooterbron, who discovered Justin Bieber, has Ariana Grande and others as affiliated artists through its subsidiary label. Last year’s net profit was 204.5 billion won, which is higher than Hive’s net profit (861 billion won). Apart from this, Hive has established a joint venture with Universal Music and is raising a boy group targeting the global market.

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In Korea, investments that mix shares with competitors such as Naver and YG were introduced, but if you look at the structure, it is a picture led by Hive.

Hive took over the V Live business unit, an online platform that Naver connects artists and fans, and handed over a 49% stake in Weverse to Naver. Hive acquired an 18% stake in YG Plus, a YG Entertainment subsidiary, using the proceeds from the sale of the stake. Hive is now able to upload Black Pink from YG, where only Naver V Live appeared, on Weverse. This is because Naver V Live has 30 million monthly users (MAU), five times that of Weverse, but Weverse’s revenue per subscriber, representing profits, was overwhelming at 80,000 won per month. The strongest players Naver and YG also recognized Hive and handed over authority in the area of ​​monetizing fandom.

The reason Hive is trying to acquire artists from domestic and foreign competitors, and competitors are willing to give it to them, is because of the profit-generating structure confirmed through Weverse. Hive hosted a BTS online concert at Weverse, generating 70 billion won in sales, and more than 80% of purchasing concert tickets came to Weverse and bought other content programs and goods. Black Pink hosted a paid online concert on YouTube, which attracted 280,000 audiences, but it was not on its own platform, and the profitability is higher than that of the related products sold through external companies.

At the time of the release of the new album, BTS continues to create paid content such as exclusively revealing through virtual reality within Epic Games licensed by Netmarble, a game company that invested a stake in Hive, for music videos and other videos, or implementing avatars for each member in Naver’s virtual space. have. In the future, Black Pink and Justin Bieber may be the targets. In addition, Hive acquired an 85% stake in medium-sized entertainment companies such as Source Music and Pledis Entertainment, and added artists such as girlfriends.

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Originally, Hive was a small and medium-sized agency, and it was difficult to appear on existing platforms such as broadcasting, and thanks to that, it was grown by communicating with fans through its own content through YouTube. In this process, Seok-jun Yoon, who joined Hive since 2010, played a large role as global CEO. After working at a content distribution startup, he created a unique fandom by uploading natural videos of members in the early stages of his BTS debut, and after growing up, he devised a strategy so that fans can experience various events like a theme park at event venues such as concerts. It is a way to make fans enjoy it by making the background appearing in the music video set or the fanpic, a novel made by fans, as a set. In the process, they implemented ideas that were not thought of as a large agency, such as using applications for the convenience of fans and product sales efficiency.

Hive has also made investments to increase its technological competitiveness, which has been evaluated as insufficient. It established a joint venture with Keithwe Mobile, an American live streaming solution company, and also invested in Universal Music. Kiss We Mobile was nominated by the Minister of Science, ICT and Future Planning, and was founded by CEO Jong-Hoon Kim, who got off the road. At BTS’ online concert, it showed seamless images and technology to show multiple different screens at once. Gepetto (12 billion won), an avatar creation app operated by Naver, and Superton (4 billion won), an artificial intelligence audio company, are also investments aimed at more complete online content.

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However, the fact that Hive announced that it will split its core business album and label business within six months of listing raises doubts in the market. In fact, it can be viewed as attracting external investments again based on similar assets, and the value of existing shareholders can fall in the process. An official from a global private equity fund, who reviewed Hive investment, pointed out that “expanding from an entertainment agency to a platform company is a smart choice,” but pointed out that “there is a task to persuade the market about the need for division.”

/ Reporter Lim Se-won [email protected]

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