[Oil Money is Coming] The Middle East Expansion of Audio Broadcasting Platform 'Spoon'

2017 Middle East Market Entry Spoon Radio CEO Choi Hyukjae Interview
"Hiring Members Who Know Local Language and Culture Is Most Important"

CEO Choi Hyuk-jae

"Hiring team members who understand Arabic and the local culture is the most important factor."

Choi Hyuk-jae, CEO of Spoon Radio, said that the most crucial aspect for domestic startups eyeing opportunities in the Middle Eastern market is 'hiring.' Although the importance of hiring is repeatedly emphasized in startup cultures where the competitiveness of team members is a key asset, CEO Choi, as a senior who has firsthand experience in the Middle Eastern market, stressed this point even more.

Spoon Radio entered the Middle Eastern market in 2017 and has been providing services there for six years. The challenges Spoon Radio faced while adapting to a market with a culture completely different from ours, and the efforts made to overcome them, serve as noteworthy examples for Korean startups attracting 'oil money' interest. Why did CEO Choi rank hiring as the top priority? We heard directly from him about Spoon Radio’s bumpy journey into the Middle East.

CEO Choi said, "Hiring team members who can speak Arabic was the most difficult task for our Middle Eastern service." Spoon Radio operates the real-time audio broadcasting platform 'Spoon.' Hiring team members who understand the direction of this service and can communicate in the local language was the biggest challenge before entering the Middle Eastern market. Luck also played a part in solving this challenge. CEO Choi explained, "Fortunately, we were able to launch the service by hiring Arabic-speaking members from the Arab region who were residing in Korea."

Having the personnel and merely supporting the language was not enough to launch the service. There were other obstacles. Unlike Korean, which is read from left to right, Arabic is read from right to left. To accommodate this, additional development was required to enable the app and website to support right-to-left usage. This is why CEO Choi recommended hiring not just Arabic speakers but people with experience in app business.

After going through these trials and tribulations, Spoon Radio first introduced its service to the Middle Eastern market in 2017. Since then, by actively expanding services in Japan, the United States, and other countries, Spoon has grown into a global audio platform with an average of 1 million monthly users. In the Middle East, it achieved a meaningful milestone with about 400,000 downloads. CEO Choi introduced, "Currently, we provide services mainly in oil-producing countries with purchasing power in the Middle East." There are practical reasons why Spoon Radio focuses its services on oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE (United Arab Emirates). CEO Choi said, "We tested the service in several Middle Eastern countries, but outside of oil-producing countries, traffic was generated but did not translate into revenue," adding, "Currently, Spoon only provides services mainly in oil-producing countries with purchasing power."

Making 'oil money' locally in oil-producing countries is not easy. Spoon is currently not aggressively spending on marketing, so revenue is not large. However, the growth potential, which was also the reason Spoon Radio decided to enter the Middle East, is still considered high. CEO Choi said, "The Middle East is the region with the highest purchasing power per customer in the in-app payment markets of Google and Apple," and "Among the countries where we operate, it is also the market where DJs make the most purchases." He explained that users open their wallets to decorate their profiles or screens or to gather other users. CEO Choi added, "Even within the Middle East, connecting with users from neighboring countries brings fun and interest."

In fact, the average age in the Middle East is one of the lowest worldwide, under 25 years old, with the majority of the population using smart devices and actively adopting new technologies. It is also characterized by minimal regulations in almost all fields, including non-face-to-face services and online education, allowing extensive use of new IT technologies. For example, Zoom’s revenue in the Middle East increased by 586% year-over-year last year.

So, where is Spoon Radio’s Middle Eastern service headed at a time when 'oil money' is paying attention to Korean startups? CEO Choi emphasized, "We are continuously updating service features tailored to the local market," and "Once these updates yield results, we plan to follow up with aggressive marketing."

#What is Spoon Radio? It operates the real-time audio broadcasting platform 'Spoon.' Amid the flood of video content, it has established itself as audio for Generation Z and as the YouTube of the audio world. As of September this year, it has an average of 1 million monthly users. Japan accounts for more than half of the users, followed by Korea, the United States, and the Middle East, developing into a global audio platform.