{"id":227914,"date":"2025-04-01T19:28:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T18:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=227914"},"modified":"2025-04-01T19:38:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T18:38:38","slug":"sm-entertainment-buys-additional-11-4-stake-in-bubble-superfan-app-operator-dearu-in-92m-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/sm-entertainment-buys-additional-11-4-stake-in-bubble-superfan-app-operator-dearu-in-92m-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"SM Entertainment buys additional 11.4% stake in Bubble superfan app operator DearU in $92m deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

K-pop agency SM Entertainment has acquired an additional 11.42% stake in fan platform operator DearU Co. for 135.6 billion won ($92 million) as the company joins a growing list of South Korean entertainment companies banking on direct-to-fan and superfan platforms.<\/p>\n

The company behind K-pop acts Girls\u2019 Generation, Red Velvet, aespa, NCT, and Riize disclosed the transaction in a Korea Exchange filing<\/a> on Friday (March 28).<\/p>\n

The filing shows that SM bought 2,711,351<\/b> shares in DearU<\/b> for KRW 50,000<\/b> ($34) apiece from JYP Entertainment<\/b>, another K-pop agency, DearU CEO Jong-Oh Ahn, <\/b>and two other investors on March 24.<\/p>\n

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The purchase price represented a 25%<\/b> premium to DearU\u2019s closing price of KRW 39,900<\/b> ($27) on March 24.<\/p>\n

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The deal raises SM\u2019s stake in DearU to 45.1%<\/b> as SM already held<\/a> a 33.7%<\/b> stake in the company via its subsidiaries SM Studios, SM Japan<\/b>, and Everysing<\/b> Japan<\/b> prior to the latest transaction.<\/p>\n

Established in July 2017 as Everysing<\/b>, DearU operates Bubble<\/b><\/a>, a subscription-based platform where fans pay a monthly fee of about KRW 4,500<\/b><\/a>\u00a0to exchange private messages with K-pop artists and watch artists\u2019 livestreams. Bubble, launched in February 2020, reportedly had around 2.3 million subscribers<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0as of the second half of 2023.<\/p>\n

In addition to Bubble, DearU also operates mobile karaoke app Everysing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As Bubble grew, DearU acquired<\/a> Universe<\/b>, a mobile fan platform created by video game developer NCSoft<\/b> and launched in January 2021. Following the 2023 acquisition, DearU transferred Universe\u2019s users to Bubble.<\/p>\n

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In 2024, DearU\u2019s profit fell<\/a> to KRW 25.4 billion<\/b> from KRW 28.6 billion in 2023. Revenue last year also declined to KRW 74.9 billion from KRW 75.7 billion.<\/p>\n

The latest transaction comes as major Korean entertainment companies sharpen their focus on fan engagement in addition to their traditional artist management businesses.<\/p>\n

Kakao Entertainment<\/b>, which together with its parent Kakao Corp.<\/b>, holds a 40.28%<\/b> stake in SM Entertainment, recently entered this space with the launch<\/a> of an app called Berriz<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/i>It describes the app as \u201ca cutting-edge global fan platform designed to revolutionize the user experience.\u201d In addition to music artists and creators, Kakao\u2019s Berriz will also cater to fans of drama, film, webtoons and musicals.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the most dominant superfan platform in Korea, Weverse<\/b>, is operated by HYBE<\/b>, which owned<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a09.38%<\/b>\u00a0stake in SM Entertainment as of June 30, 2024. Weverse helped push revenue<\/a> for HYBE\u2019s \u201cartist-indirect\u201d segment up by 14.5%<\/span> \u00a0YoY\u00a0<\/strong>to\u00a0KRW 809.29 billion<\/b>\u00a0($593.56 million<\/b>) in 2024.<\/p>\n

As of the end of 2024, Weverse counted 9.4 million <\/b>monthly active users and\u00a0hit the milestone<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0150 million<\/b>\u00a0cumulative global downloads, with the number of artist communities on the platform growing\u00a030% YoY<\/b>\u00a0to\u00a0162<\/b>\u00a0last year. Weverse has previously said that around 90%<\/b> of the artists on the platform are signed to labels other than HYBE.<\/p>\n

In July 2023,\u00a0Goldman Sachs<\/b>\u00a0estimated<\/a>\u00a0the addressable market opportunity for superfan monetization at\u00a0$4.2 billion<\/b>. The bank upgraded its estimate to\u00a0$4.5 billion<\/b>\u00a0in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The deal raises SM\u2019s stake in DearU to 45.1% <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":202872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[133921,133920,130045,132105,133596,131099],"class_list":["post-227914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bubble","tag-dearu","tag-sm-entertainment","tag-superfan-app","tag-superfan-platform","tag-superfans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}