"Confirmed Potential of Next-Generation Community 'OpenTalk'"
[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Choi] Naver captivated sports fans by recording a cumulative viewership of 100 million through its live broadcast service for the ‘2022 Qatar World Cup’.
According to Naver on the 21st, the total cumulative viewers for all 64 matches, from the World Cup opening ceremony to the final between France and Argentina, reached 121,173,945. The match with the highest simultaneous viewers was the South Korea vs. Ghana game held on the 28th of last month, with 2,263,764 viewers.
In particular, during the last Group H match of the group stage that decided the round of 16, the combined simultaneous viewers for South Korea vs. Portugal (2,174,007) and Uruguay vs. Ghana (2,365,005) exceeded 4 million, setting the highest record in Naver Sports history.
Naver’s next-generation community service ‘OpenTalk,’ launched last September, grew thanks to the World Cup fever. As of the 20th, 1,387 OpenTalks were created in the soccer and international soccer categories, and a total of 2,682 OpenTalks were opened, gathering users based on the common interest of ‘sports.’
About 2.78 million users visited the official OpenTalks on World Cup topics, and the number of chat messages posted exceeded approximately 510,000. The ‘Qatar On-site Press Corps OpenTalk,’ where local reporters uploaded vivid photos, videos, and interviews, and the ‘EstaTV OpenTalk,’ where members of EstaTV, a soccer creator popular among the MZ generation (Millennials + Generation Z), directly communicate, attracted attention.
Meanwhile, the ‘World Cup Prediction’ event, which was rolled over three times because no user correctly predicted all group stage match outcomes, gained popularity as an interactive event. A total of 3.18 million participants joined over seven rounds, far surpassing the 1.8 million participants of the 2018 Russia World Cup.
Jugeonbeom, Naver Sports leader, said, “About 68% of live broadcast viewers, 52% of OpenTalk visitors, and 73% of prediction participants were from the MZ generation or younger, showing particular success in targeting young sports fans. We will continue to maintain the popularity of next-generation communities,” he said.
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