[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Hyowon] SAMG Entertainment (CEO Kim Suhoon, hereinafter SAMG Entertainment)’s ‘Sparkling Catch! Tinyping’ is seeing a full-scale growth in toy sales within China. SAMG Entertainment plans to introduce various product lines such as apparel and F&B (food and beverage) to the Chinese market starting with toys this year.
On the 6th, SAMG Entertainment announced that the sales volume of its 3D animation ‘Sparkling Catch! Tinyping’ toys around the Chinese Lunar New Year period this year increased about fourfold compared to the same period last year. In terms of sales amount, it was recorded to have increased about fivefold.
SAMG Entertainment explained that the increase in ‘Catch! Tinyping’ toy sales during the Chinese Lunar New Year period was due to a more diversified product lineup than last year. The average sales volume per product SKU increased by 49% compared to one year ago.
This is regarded as a predicted sensation. As of last month, ‘Catch! Tinyping’ toys ranked 5th in the figure category (based on sales amount) on China’s largest e-commerce platform ‘Tmall’. On ‘JD.com’, known as the Amazon of China, it ranked 2nd in the figure category.
The growth of ‘Sparkling Catch! Tinyping’ in the Chinese market is quite rapid even compared to SAMG Entertainment’s other IPs. Another mega IP of SAMG Entertainment, ‘Mini Force’, took about a year to enter the top 10 on major Chinese OTT platforms, but ‘Sparkling Catch! Tinyping’ ranked in the top 3 on Youku, one of China’s three major OTT platforms, just three days after its launch, showing a fast growth trend.
A representative of SAMG Entertainment’s Chinese partner company Wowdadi said, “SAMG Entertainment’s toy sales target in China this year was about 10 billion KRW, but if the popularity of ‘Sparkling Catch! Tinyping’ continues, we expect it to be possible to achieve 20 billion KRW in sales.”
SAMG Entertainment evaluated that the current growth in toy sales of ‘Sparkling Catch! Tinyping’ is meaningful in that the kids’ fandom formed through online platforms such as OTT is now expanding significantly into offline sales. SAMG Entertainment has a strong global fandom with 40 million YouTube subscribers and a combined 50 billion views on YouTube and OTT platforms.
Notably, until last year, ‘Tinyping’ toys were sold in the Chinese market through licensing, but from this year, SAMG Entertainment has started direct distribution. Selling toys through direct distribution can achieve both greater scale growth and improved profit margins compared to licensing.
SAMG Entertainment plans to accelerate profitability improvement by increasing the proportion of direct business in China this year. Additionally, it aims for further sales growth by expanding product lines sold in China, including apparel and F&B.
A SAMG Entertainment official said, “To expand profitability this year, we plan to improve the product distribution structure in the Chinese market more efficiently,” adding, “We are considering various options such as establishing a new corporation with Chinese partners.”
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
