Naver and AfreecaTV Secure World Cup Broadcast Rights... Targeting Year-End Special Demand

Naver Targets Year-End Ad Demand Expansion and Open Talk Activation
AfricanTV Aims to Increase New Users Through World Cup

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Yuri] Ahead of the opening of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, Naver and AfreecaTV, which secured online broadcasting rights, are aiming for a year-end boom. Naver plans to expand advertising demand during the peak season through the World Cup while activating its new chat service, 'Open Talk.' AfreecaTV's strategy is to retain new users attracted by the World Cup by leveraging short-form content such as 'Catch.'

According to the IT industry on the 17th, Naver will provide live broadcasts of the matches and major match video-on-demand (VOD) content of the '2022 Qatar World Cup' starting from the 21st. Having secured the broadcasting rights earlier than any domestic portal or online video service (OTT) industry, Naver expects a World Cup boom through various services.

Naver started operating a special page early on. Since the 10th, the World Cup special page has featured news and schedules of the Qatar World Cup, as well as short-form videos showcasing memorable moments from past World Cups. They also plan to operate a 'Match Prediction' service that rewards users with Naver Pay points for correctly predicting match outcomes.

In particular, Naver will utilize 'Open Talk' as a communication platform for users during the World Cup period to activate the service. Open Talk is an open chat service based on interests that allows unlimited participation. Users can watch live broadcasts together while participating in real-time voting and sharing memorable scenes.

Naver introduced Open Talk in September. It was first applied in the sports domain, where users can share interests while watching content immersively. As of the 7th, over 2,000 Open Talk chat rooms have been created, with 42% of users being under 30 years old.

Since Naver plans to expand Open Talk beyond sports into other areas and link it with advertising and commerce, it expects a World Cup boom. Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said during the earnings conference call on the 7th, "We will actively capture advertiser demand through the World Cup broadcasting rights," adding, "We will expand Open Talk to dramas, stocks, and trending keywords and seek synergies with advertising and commerce businesses in the mid to long term."

AfreecaTV also secured the World Cup broadcasting rights for the third consecutive time and is working to acquire new users. They opened a World Cup special page providing related information and prepared differentiated broadcasts. These include online cheering broadcasts featuring former national team players and BJs, as well as biased broadcasts involving foreigners from countries participating in the World Cup.

Besides World Cup broadcasts, AfreecaTV plans to diversify content. They will strengthen the curation of original content involving BJs, such as the short-form VOD service 'Catch' and the web variety show 'Cheolgam-bong.' This approach is based on the judgment that popular content will be effective in retaining new users with low experience on AfreecaTV.

AfreecaTV secured broadcasting rights consecutively during the 2014 Brazil World Cup and the 2018 Russia World Cup but only experienced a temporary boost. During the Russia World Cup, monthly active users (MAU) increased by nearly 30% compared to the same period the previous year, but retention dropped to about 4% after the World Cup ended.

They also expect a virtuous cycle effect of increasing paid users by improving new user retention. AfreecaTV faces the challenge of recovering from a 6.9% decrease in paying users in the third quarter compared to the previous quarter due to Google's in-app payment policy. AfreecaTV CEO Jung Chan-yong emphasized, "We will prioritize securing server stability and maintain incoming users with easily accessible content."