[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] NCSoft is planning to sell its global fandom platform 'Universe.' This comes two years after the company ventured into the entertainment sector to diversify its business.
According to the IT industry on the 29th, NCSoft is in discussions with Kakao Entertainment to sell Universe to Starship Entertainment, a subsidiary under Kakao Entertainment.
Universe is a service operated by NCSoft's subsidiary KLEB since January last year. KLEB is led by Kim Taek-heon, Senior Vice President of NCSoft and younger brother of NCSoft CEO Kim Taek-jin.
Popular K-pop artists such as IVE, (G)I-DLE, MONSTA X, and Kang Daniel are active on Universe. The service is available in 233 countries, with over 24 million global downloads.
However, it is analyzed that NCSoft is pushing for the sale due to losing competition against other fandom platforms like Weverse by Weverse Company under HYBE and Bubble by Dear U, a subsidiary of SM Entertainment.
Regarding this, NCSoft and Kakao Entertainment stated, "Nothing has been finalized."
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