Monthly Subscription Fee Frozen at 9,900 Won
"No Plans to Raise Within Several Months"
"Focusing on AI Technology-Based Services"
The e-book subscription platform 'Millie's Library' posted its best performance in the first quarter of this year. It utilized methods such as increasing corporate customers and bundling with high-priced telecom plans.
Millie's Library announced on the 13th that its sales from January to March this year reached 16.8 billion KRW, a 31% increase compared to the same period last year. Operating profit for the same period was 2.9 billion KRW, marking a 42% increase from the previous year.
The factors behind the sales growth were cited as ▲stable e-book subscription revenue ▲diversification of income sources through expansion of B2B and B2BC businesses ▲sales of paper books utilizing original IP.
In particular, since last year, the company has been actively promoting its business-to-business (B2B) service that sells subscriptions to corporate customers such as large corporations, startups, and public institutions.
It is analyzed that the increase in B2BC sales, which involves bulk sales of subscriptions through e-commerce platforms like TMON and settlements through partnerships with telecom companies such as KT and LG Uplus, contributed to the strong performance. Especially, they utilized a method of bundling Millie's Library subscriptions with KT's high-priced plans costing over 90,000 KRW. Since June last year, partnerships with budget phone carriers have also been underway.
Looking at the sales ratio by sales channel, general B2C accounts for 50%, B2B for 11%, and B2BC for 38%.
Millie's Library is a great-grandchild company of KT. In other words, the largest shareholder of Millie's Library is Genie Music (with a 30.24% stake), the largest shareholder of Genie Music is KT Studio Genie (35.97%), and the largest shareholder of KT Studio Genie is KT (90.91%). Park Hyunjin, CEO of Millie's Library, previously served as head of KT's 5G Business Division, head of KT's Consumer Strategy Division, and CEO of Genie Music.
The amount Millie's Library earned from sales to KT in the first quarter of this year was 5 billion KRW, which is 2 billion KRW more than the previous quarter.
The monthly subscription fee on Millie's Library's website has been maintained at 9,900 KRW since the service launch. However, when subscribing via smartphone applications, there is about a 2,000 KRW difference between Apple (11,900 KRW per month) and Google (9,900 KRW per month). Regarding this, a Millie's Library representative explained, "It is due to in-app payment fees." Concerning subscription fee increases, they stated, "We are internally running simulations and reviewing it, but there are no plans to raise fees in the next few months."
Park Hyunjin, CEO of Millie's Library, emphasized, "Along with qualitative growth through business expansion, we will focus on various services utilizing AI technology to secure continuous growth momentum."
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